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Morten Schlütter (1956-)

http://clas.uiowa.edu/religion/people/morten-schl%C3%BCtter
http://clas.uiowa.edu/religion/files/religion/field/cv/Schlu%CC%88tter%20CV%202014.pdf

PDF: ‘Who is reciting the name of the Buddha?' as Kōan in Chinese Chan (Zen) Buddhism
by Morten Schlütter
Frontiers of History in China, 2013, 8(3): pp. 366–388.

PDF: The Record of Hongzhi and the Recorded Sayings Literature of Song-Dynasty Chan
by Morten Schlütter
In: The Zen Canon: Understanding the Classic Texts. (Eds. S. Heine & D. S. Wright), 2004. pp. 181-205.

PDF: How Zen Became Zen
The Dispute over Enlightenment and the Formation of Chan Buddhism in Song-Dynasty China (2008)
by Morten Schlütter

Introduction
1. Chan Buddhism in the Song: Some Background
2. The Chan School and the Song State
3. Procreation and Patronage in the Song Chan School
4. A New Chan Tradition: The Reinvention of the Caodong Lineage in the Song
5. A Dog Has No Buddha-Nature: Kanhua Chan and Dahui Zonggao's Attacks on Silent Illumination
6. The Caodong Tradition as the Target of Attacks by the Linji Tradition
7. Silent Illumination and the Caodong Tradition
Conclusion
Notes
Caodong Lineage
Linji Lineage
Glossary

Formation and Fabrication in the History and Historiography of Chan Buddhism
by James Robson

Review of
Fathering Your Father: The Zen of Fabrication in Tang Buddhism
by Alan Cole.

How Zen Became Zen: The Dispute over Enlightenment and the Formation of Chan Buddhism in Song-Dynasty China
by Morten Schlütter.

PDF:  ‘Before the Empty Eon' versus ‘A Dog has no Buddha-nature':
Kung-an Use in the Ts'ao-tung Tradition and Ta-hui's Kung-an Introspection Ch'an
by Morten Schlütter
In: The Koan: Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism, edited by Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright. New York, 2000, Chapter 6, pp. 168-199.

The Platform Sutra

PDF: A Study in the Genealogy of the Platform Sutra
by Morten Schlütter
Studies in Central and East Asian Religions 2:53-114, (Autumn) 1989

PDF: Transmission and Enlightenment in Chan Buddhism Seen Through the Platform Sūtra
by Morten Schlütter
Chung-hwa Buddhist Journal 21, 2007, pp. 379–410.

PDF: Readings of the Platform Sūtra
Edited by Morten Schlütter and Stephen F. Teiser
Readings of Buddhist Literature series. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/schl15820

Preface
1. Introduction: The Platform Sūtra, Buddhism, and Chinese Religion, by Morten Schlütter, pp. 13–28.
2. The Figure of Huineng, by John Jorgensen
3. The History and Practice of Early Chan, by Henrik H. Sørensen
4. The Sudden Teaching, by Peter N. Gregory
5. Transmitting Notions of Transmission, by Wendi L. Adamek
6. Ordination and Precepts in the Platform Sūtra, by Paul Groner
7. The Platform Sūtra and Chinese Thought, by Brook Ziporyn
Character Glossary
Bibliography
Contributors
Index

On the Evolution of the Platform Sūtra 六祖壇經 (DRAFT July 2009 –NOT FOR CITATION)
by Morten Schlütter
https://www.douban.com/group/topic/32747972/

PDF: Textual Criticism and the Turbulent Life of the Platform Sūtra
by Morten Schlütter
Studies in Chinese and Sino-Tibetan Linguistics: Dialect, Phonology, Transcription and Text, edited by Richard VanNess Simmons and Newell Ann Van Auken.
Taipei: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica, 2014. pp. 399–427.

PDF: The Transformation of the Formless Precepts in the Platform Sūtra (Liuzu tanjing 六祖壇經)
by Morten Schlütter
In: Rules of Engagement, Hamburg Buddhist Studies, 2017, pp. 411-450.
https://www.buddhismuskunde.uni-hamburg.de/pdf/4-publikationen/hamburg-buddhist-studies/hamburgup-hbs09-full.pdf

PDF: Rhetoric in the Platform Sūtra and the Development of “Encounter Dialogue” in Chinese Zen
by Morten Schlütter
in: On-cho Ng and Charles Prebish, eds. The Theory and Practice of Zen Buddhism: A Festschrift in Honor of Steven Heine, Springer. pp. 65-90.

KOAN
by Morten Schlütter
in Encyclopedia of Buddhism, editor-in-chief Robert Buswell. New York: Macmillan Press, pp. 526-529.

Koan (Chinese, gong’an; Korean, kongan; “case for
judgment” or “public case”) is an administrative and
legal term that was first adopted by the Chan (Korean,
Son; Japanese, Zen) school in Song-dynasty China
(960–1279). The Japanese pronunciation of the term,
koan, has become standard in English usage. The term
mainly refers to the usually enigmatic, frequently
startling, and sometimes shocking stories about leg-
endary Chan masters’ encounters with disciples and
other interlocutors. The koan may be the most dis-
tinctive feature of Chan Buddhism, where it is
understood as an unmediated articulation of enlight-
enment (Chinese, wu; Japanese, satori; awakening).
Since the tenth century, Chan students throughout
East Asia have studied and pondered koans in order
to gain a sudden breakthrough of insight into the
minds of the ancient Chan masters and into their own
primordial buddha-minds.

The best-known koan is probably the one about the
Tang-dynasty (618–907) Chan master Zhaozhou
Congshen (778–897), who reportedly was asked:
“Does a dog have the buddha-nature or not?,” to
which he replied “It doesn’t” (Chinese, wu; Japanese,
mu; Korean, mu), or simply “no.” Zhaozhou’s answer
poses an impossible and confusing contradiction of
the MAHAYANA Buddhist notion, central to all of
Chan, that every sentient being is endowed with the
buddha-nature or TATHAGATAGARBHA. Another fa-
mous koan is the one about the master Nanquan
Puyuan (748–835), who is said to have challenged two
monks who were fighting over the ownership of a cat
to demonstrate their enlightened minds to him on the
spot. When neither could do so, Nanquan Puyuan
hacked the cat in two, in gross violation of the Bud-
dhist precept against killing. Other koan stories about
Tang Chan masters describe shouting, hitting, and
other erratic behavior, although some koan stories
seem utterly mundane, such as when Zhaozhou is said
to have told a student who asked for instruction to go
wash his breakfast bowls.

Koans are understood to embody the enlightened
minds of the ancient Chan masters and to communi-
cate a truth that cannot be expressed in ordinary dis-
course. Many koans, like “Zhouzhou’s dog” and
“Nanquan’s cat,” can be interpreted as being about
transcending habitual dichotomies like subject and ob-
ject, and recognizing the oneness of everything in the
universe, but such rational analysis is considered fool-
ish and futile. Truly comprehending a koan is thought
to entail a sudden and direct nondualistic experience
of an ultimate reality, which fundamentally differs
from any intellectual understanding.

Since the tenth century, koan commentary has been
a favorite means of instruction in all the East Asian
Chan schools, and later koans also came to be used as
objects for meditation. Although initially only stories
that were held up for special comment by a later Chan
master were considered koans, eventually virtually any
story about a Chan master could be called a koan. The
term also came to refer to any phrase or saying that
was used to challenge students of Chan, such as “Why
did Bodhidharma come to the West?” or “What is the
sound of one hand clapping?”

Koan literature

It is uncertain when exactly koans first began to be pro-
duced. Early Chan materials from the sixth and sev-
enth centuries show that koans were not a feature of
early Chan, although the later tradition created many
koan stories about the early masters.

It is the Chinese Chan masters of the eighth to mid-
tenth centuries who most often are the protagonists of
koan stories, but few facts about this so-called golden
age of Chan exist and no sources that contain koans
can be reliably dated to that period. The earliest data-
ble source for koans is the groundbreaking genealog-
ical Chan history, the Zutang ji (Korean, Chodang chip;
Collection from the Hall of the Patriarchs) from 952.
Later genealogical Chan histories are also important
sources for koans, but the most influential was the
Jingde chuandeng lu (Records of the Transmission of the
Lamplight [of enlightenment compiled during the] Jingde
Era) from 1004, and many of the most commonly used
koans come from this work. Koans can also be found
in collections focusing on individual Chan masters.
Such collections, which are known as “recorded say-
ings” or “discourse records” (Chinese, yulu), were first
published during the Song dynasty.

Early in the Song it became common for Chan mas-
ters to sermonize on select koans and offer their own
comments (usually just as enigmatic as the original sto-
ries), often with verses expressing their understanding.
This gave rise to a number of published collections of
koans with appended commentary by a specific mas-
ter. These collections themselves sometimes became
the object of several levels of commentary by still other
Chan masters, creating complex and multilayered
works of literature. The most famous of these com-
pilations is Yuanwu Keqin’s (1063–1135) Biyan lu
(Japanese, Hekigan roku; Blue Cliff Record), which it-
self has become a common subject of commentary by
modern Japanese and Western Zen masters.

Koan commentary and other types of koan litera-
ture are best understood as literary genres created by
a Song-dynasty Chan school that was looking back to
an age of semimythical ancestors. Song Chan masters
themselves are almost never the subject of koan sto-
ries. An important audience for this literature has al-
ways been the secular educated elite, whose support
has been crucial to the fortunes of all the East Asian
Chan schools.

Kanhua Chan

In the eleventh century, some Chinese Chan masters
began to assign particular koans to individual students
to ponder; in several accounts such mulling over a
koan is reported to have led to an enlightenment ex-
perience for the student. Initially, this seems to have
been a general contemplation of the koan that was not
specifically associated with formal meditation.

However, in the twelfth century a new meditative
technique developed in which the koan became the
subject of intense reflection. This form of meditation,
which had no counterpart in traditional Indian med-
itation practice, became known as kanhua Chan (Ko-
rean, kanhwa Son; Japanese, kanna Zen; “Chan of
observing the key phrase” or “koan introspection
Chan”) and was first formulated by Dahui ZONGGAO
(1089–1163) of the Linji Chan tradition. Dahui di-
rected his students to meditate on the crucial part of a
koan, the huatou (Korean, hwadu; Japanese, wato; crit-
ical phrase, keyword, or punchline). In Dahui’s fa-
vorite koan, “Zhaozhou’s dog,” the word wu (no) is
the huatou. According to Dahui, prolonged and in-
tense attention to the huatou, maintained not only in
sitting meditation but in all activities, will cause a huge
“ball of DOUBT” to form, which will eventually burst
into an enlightenment experience.

Scholars have commonly accepted the Chan school’s
own view of the development of kanhua Chan as a
response to a “spiritual decline” in the Song and an
effort to preserve the wisdom and insights of the
great Tang Chan masters. However, in “The ‘Short-
cut’ Approach of K’an-Hua Meditation” (1987) Robert
Buswell argues that kanhua Chan can be better un-
derstood as a culmination of internal developments in
Chan “whereby its subitist rhetoric came to be ex-
tended to pedagogy and finally to practice.” In “Silent
Illumination, Kung-an Introspection, and the Compe-
tition for Lay Patronage in Sung-Dynasty Ch’an”
(1999) Morten Schlütter suggests that Dahui champi-
oned kanhua Chan, in large part, as a corrective to the
MOZHAO CHAN (Japanese, mokusho; silent illumina-
tion) meditation that was taught in the rival Caodong
tradition of Chan, which Dahui condemned as qui-
etistic and not leading to enlightenment. Dahui seems
especially concerned that Caodong masters were teach-
ing silent illumination to members of the secular ed-
ucated elite, and competition for patronage was clearly
an element in the dispute.

Koan use after Dahui

Dahui’s development of kanhua Chan exerted an enor-
mous influence on koan use and Chan meditation in
all of East Asia. However, it is important to be aware
that the older practices of koan study and koan com-
mentary were never abandoned and continued to ex-
ist alongside the practice of kanhua Chan.

In Japan, kanhua Chan was taken up in the Rinzai
(Chinese, Linji) sect of Zen, where koans were even-
tually systematized by the reformer HAKUIN EKAKU
(1686–1768) and his disciples into a curriculum of
five main levels. Students meditate on the huatou
(Japanese, wato) of a series of koans and have to pass
each koan in meetings with the Zen master (known as
sanzen or dokusan) by giving the answers considered
correct in their Zen master’s particular lineage. The
answers, and answers to related follow-up questions,
are supposed to be kept secret, but, in fact, crib-sheets
exist. However, Zen masters are thought to be able to
distinguish an answer that demonstrates true insight
(Japanese, kensho) from one that has simply been
memorized. Finishing the entire koan curriculum to
the satisfaction of the Zen master ends the training of
a student, who is now ready to function as a Zen mas-
ter. However, completing the curriculum takes many
years, and most students leave long before completion
to take over their family temples.

The founder of the Japanese Soto (Chinese,
Caodong) sect of Zen, DOGEN (1200–1253), who be-
came heir to the Caodong tradition of Chan, did not
advocate kanhua Chan meditation, and it has never
been employed in the Soto sect. However, Dogen of-
ten commented on koans as a means of instruction,
and medieval Soto students were formally trained in
koan commentary. After reforms in the eighteenth
century the Soto sect sought to differentiate itself from
the Rinzai sect and koan use became rare in Soto.

In Korea, Dahui’s kanhua Chan quickly took root,
mainly through the efforts of the great Son master
CHINUL (1158–1210) and his disciple HYESIM
(1178–1234), and kanhua Chan eventually came to
dominate Korean Buddhist meditation practice. In
Korean Son, a student will usually only contemplate a
few koans over a lifetime, based on the notion that
resolving one koan is resolving them all.
In China, kanhua Chan became a standard for Chan
meditation soon after Dahui, even in the Caodong tra-
dition that Dahui had criticized. Kanhua Chan con-
tinues to be important in Chinese Chan through the
twentieth century, although earlier types of medita-
tion, similar to silent illumination, are also considered
legitimate.

MOZHAO CHAN (SILENT ILLUMINATION CHAN)
by Morten Schlütter
in: Encyclopedia of Buddhism, editor-in-chief Robert Buswell. New York: Macmillan Press, pp. 568-569.

Used as a derogatory term by its critics, “silent illumi-
nation” Chan (Chinese, mozhao Chan; Japanese,
mukosho Zen) designates an approach to practice and
enlightenment that strongly emphasizes the inherently
enlightened buddha-nature (TATHAGATAGARBHA) in all
SENTIENT BEINGS. Silent illumination Chan advocates
an objectless, still MEDITATION, in which all dualisms
disappear and enlightenment naturally manifests itself.

The term silent illumination was first used in Chi-
nese Chan (Korean, Son; Japanese, Zen) circles in the
first half of the twelfth century, probably introduced
by the great Chan master of the Caodong tradition,
Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091–1157). However, the term
was made infamous by Hongzhi’s contemporary
Dahui ZONGGAO (1089–1163) of the Linji Chan tradi-
tion, who vehemently attacked what he called the
“heretical silent illumination Chan” of his day as a qui-
etistic form of meditation, lacking in wisdom and en-
lightenment. Dahui Zonggao countered with his own
kanhua Chan meditation (literally “Chan of observing
the key phrase” or “KOAN introspection Chan”), and
he succeeded in imbuing the term silent illumination
with strongly negative connotations that came to char-
acterize it in all of East Asian Buddhism.

Hongzhi is the only Chan master on record who
used silent illumination in a positive sense, although it
is possible that the term was expunged from the
records of other Caodong masters after Dahui’s at-
tacks. In his writings and recorded sayings, Hongzhi
often lyrically extols the realm of enlightenment that
manifests in quiet meditation, as in the opening lines
of his famous poem “Mozhao Ming” (“Inscription on
Silent Illumination”), where he writes: “In complete si-
lence, words are forgotten; total clarity appears before
you.” However, in this poem and elsewhere, Hongzhi
stresses that although there is no need to strive for an
enlightenment experience, the meditator must not fall
into a murky and unthinking state of mind; transcen-
dent wisdom will naturally manifest itself only in an
alert mind. To Hongzhi, silent illumination was by no
means a passive or thought-suppressing exercise.

Other Caodong masters around the time of
Hongzhi can be shown to have embraced similar
teachings, beginning with the reviver of the Song-
dynasty (960–1279) Caodong tradition, Furong
Daokai (1043–1118). There is, however, no evidence
that a special silent illumination approach character-
ized the Caodong Chan tradition from the time of its
reputed founder, Dongshan Liangjie (807–869), al-
though this has often been assumed.

In the thirteenth century the Japanese monk DOGEN
(1200–1253) received a transmission in the Chinese
Caodong tradition and founded the Japanese Soto sect
of Zen. Dogen did not use the term silent illumination,
but his shikantaza (just sitting) meditation practice can
clearly be seen as influenced by the silent illumination
of the twelfth-century Caodong tradition, although
there is no agreement among scholars as to the extent
of this influence. The Japanese Rinzai (Chinese, Linji)
sect of Zen, which became heir to Dahui Zonggao’s
kanhua Chan, has occasionally accused the Soto sect
of practicing silent illumination, but the Soto sect has
never used the term for its own teachings. In Korean
Son, kanhua (Korean, kanwha) Chan dominated early
on, and silent illumination Chan never had an impact.
Although kanhua Chan became the standard for med-
itation in China shortly after Dahui Zonggao and was
even adopted in the late Song Caodong tradition, silent
illumination style meditation is still recognized as le-
gitimate in Chinese Chan.