ZEN MESTEREK ZEN MASTERS
« Zen főoldal
« vissza a Terebess Online nyitólapjára
Michel Mohr
Chinese name: 蒙葦 Méng Wěi
http://icscc.fudan.edu.cn/en/index.php?c=fwxz&a=show&id=207
List of Selected Publications
PDF: Zen Buddhism during the Tokugawa Period: The Challenge to Go beyond Sectarian Consciousness
Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 1994 21/4
PDF: Monastic Tradition and Lay Practice from the Perspective of Nantenbō: A Response of Japanese Zen Buddhism to Modernity
by Michel Mohr
Zen Buddhism Today 1996. 12: 63–89.
Article examining the biography of the unconventional Zen teacher Tōshū (or Tōjū) Zenchū 鄧州全忠, known as Nantenbō 南天棒 (Nakahara 中原 1839–1925), whose "chamber name" was Hakugaikutsu 白崖窟. It discusses in particular a reform project he proposed in 1893 before considering the nationalist dimension of Nantenbō's thought and his view of lay practice.
PDF: Japanese Zen Schools and the Transition to Meiji: A Plurality of Responses in the Nineteenth Century
Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 1998 25/1-2
PDF: Filial Piety with a Zen Twist: Universalism and Particularism Surrounding the Sutra on the Difficulty of Reciprocating the Kindness of Parents
Journal of Religion in Japan, 2013. 2 (1): 35–62.
This article examines the Sutra on the Difficulty of Reciprocating the Kindness of Parents (Fùmǔ ēn nánbào jīng 父母恩難報經, T 16 no. 684) and its reinterpretation by the Japanese Rinzai Zen monk Tōrei Enji 東嶺圓慈 (1721–1792). In the context of the Tokugawa period (1600–1867) where filial piety was upheld as one of the pillars of morality and Neo-confucian orthodoxy, Tōrei's commentary of this sutra skillfully combined the particularist understanding of filiality as limited to one's relatives with its broader construal as a universal attitude of reverence directed toward all sentient beings. The father is envisioned as the wisdom and the excellence of the Buddha, the mother as the compassionate vows of the Bodhisattva, and the children as those who emit the thought of awakening. Tōrei further pushed this interpretation by adding the distinct Zen idea that the initial insight into one's true nature needs to be surpassed and refined by perfecting the going beyond (kōjō 向上) phase of training, where the child/disciple's legacy and his indebtedness towards his spiritual mentors is recast in terms of overcoming one's attainments and attachment to them.
PDF: Immeasurable Devices: Their Treatment in the Damoduoluo chanjing and Further Distillation in Japanese Zen
Dharma Drum Journal of Buddhist Studies 16: June 2015, 63–94.
Invocation of the Sage: The Ritual to Glorify the Emperor
In PDF: Zen Ritual: Studies of Zen Buddhist Theory in Practice, edited by Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 205-223.
PDF: “Beyond Awareness: Tōrei Enji's Understanding of Realization in the Treatise on the Inexhaustible Lamp of Zen, Chapter 6.”
In: Buddhist Philosophy: Essential Readings, edited by William Edelglass, and Jay L. Garfield. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 159–170.
PDF: Imagining Indian Zen: Tōrei's Commentary on the Ta-mo-to-lo ch'an ching and the Rediscovery of Early Meditation Techniques during the Tokugawa Era
In: Zen Classics: Formative Texts in the History of Zen Buddhism, edited by Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright. Oxford and New York, 2006, pp. 215–246.
PDF: The Use of Traps and Snares: Shaku Sōen Revisited by Michel Mohr
In: Zen Masters, edited by Steven Heine, and Dale Stuart Wright. New York: 2010, pp. 183–216.
PDF: Emerging from nonduality: Kōan practice in the Rinzai tradition since Hakuin
In: The Koan: Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism (New York, 2000), Chapter 10, pp. 244–279.
PDF: Murakami Senshō: In Search [of] the Fundamental Unity of Buddhism
by Michel Mohr
The Eastern Buddhist, vol. 37 nos. 1–2, 2005, pp. 77–105 [published in September 2006].
Plowing the Zen Field: Trends Since 1989 and Emerging Perspectives
Blackwell Publishing, 2012.
Religion Compass 6 (2): 113–24.
This survey article focuses on the object and scope of Zen Studies, and on trends visible since 1989. It argues that scholarship about Chan, Zen, Chan, Seon, and Thieˆn should be more closely integrated with Buddhist Studies, and that the boundaries of this field need to be expanded. Critical and epistemologically aware scholarship only emerged in the 1990s. Hence, scholars need to make a concerted effort in devoting more attention to methodological issues. This in turn ought to be skillfully distilled to non-academic audiences.
Linking Chan/Seon/Zen Figures and Their Texts: Problems and Developments in the Construction of a Relational Database
Texas Digital Library, Chinese Collections in the Digital Library, Vol 3, No 2 (2002)
Issues related to the construction of a database on Buddhist historical figures and their written legacy are discussed in the paper, which deliberately takes the researcher's point of view, reviewing concrete examples rather than elaborating on technical issues. One part of the IRIZ "Zen Knowledge Base" project initiated by Urs App is to establish a unique ID number for each Chan/Seon/Zen figure, thereby enabling each author to be linked with the extant documents. The primary stages of this project having now been completed, the paper presents some initial results and working hypotheses, and reflects on wider issues related to the digitization of Buddhist research materials.
Buddhism, Unitarianism, and the Meiji Competition for Universality
Harvard East Asian Monographs 351. Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 2014.
In the late 1800s, as Japanese leaders mulled over the usefulness of religion in modernizing their country, they chose to invite Unitarian missionaries to Japan. This book spotlights one facet of debates sparked by the subsequent encounter between Unitarianism and Buddhism—an intersection that has been largely neglected in the scholarly literature. Focusing on the cascade of events triggered by the missionary presence of the American Unitarian Association on Japanese soil between 1887 and 1922, Michel Mohr's study sheds new light on this formative time in Japanese religious and intellectual history.
Drawing on the wealth of information contained in correspondence sent and received by Unitarian missionaries in Japan, as well as periodicals, archival materials, and Japanese sources, Mohr shows how this missionary presence elicited unprecedented debates on “universality” and how the ambiguous idea of “universal truth” was utilized by missionaries to promote their own cultural and ethnocentric agendas. At the turn of the twentieth century this notion was appropriated and reformulated by Japanese intellectuals and religious leaders, often to suit new political and nationalistic ambitions.
Michel Mohr
“Vers la redécouverte de Tōrei” [Towards the Rediscovery of Tōrei],
Les Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie, no. 7, 1993–94, Special Issue on Chan and Zen Buddhism, pp. 319–52 (in French).
http://www.persee.fr/doc/asie_0766-1177_1993_num_7_1_1070
Michel Mohr
Traité sur l'Inépuisable Lampe du Zen: Tōrei (1721–1792) et sa vision de l'éveil
[Treatise on the Inexhaustible Lamp of Zen: Tōrei and his Vision of Awakening], 2 vols.
Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques vol. XXVIII. Brussels (Bruxelles) 1997: Institut Belge des Hautes Études Chinoises.
https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/40003 146.04 MB
Les écoles Zen japonaises sont surtout connues par l'entremise de travaux de vulgarisation qui mentionnent les pionniers de l'époque de Kamakura (1185-1333). La réalité des écoles Zen, telles qu'elles subsistent dans le Japon actuel, présentent cependant un visage bien plus complexe que ne le voudraient les schématisations habituelles. Il s'avère en particulier que l'évolution de ces traditions au cours de l'époque d'Edo (1600-1867) a façonné leurs structures institutionnelles et a conduit à des transformations considérables sur le plan doctrinal. La manière dont la pratique est conçue dans l'école Rinzai a en particulier subi une refonte en profondeur, dont les répercussions sont comparables à celles d'une «réforme». L'étude de Torei et la première traduction intégrale de son oeuvre proposent un regard nouveau sur l'école Rinzai de cette période en donnant la parole à l'un des plus éminents disciples de Hakuin Ekaku. Le texte proposé en traduction révèle comment cette tradition est conçue de l'intérieur. Cet ouvrage permet de situer la tradition Rinzai dans l'ensemble de la pensée bouddhique et propose quelques clés pour comprendre cette branche vivante du bouddhisme japonais dans son contexte. Il remet en question l'image d'un enseignement allergique à l'étude et montre tout en nuances en quoi consiste le chemin concret de la quête du soi selon cette tradition. Comporte une édition annotée du texte original, un index et une abondante bibliographie.
Japanese Buddhist history since the Tokugawa period is neglected by Japanese and Western scholarship. Despite the apparent popularity of “Zen,” studies on the Tokugawa Rinzai school are particularly scarce. Moreover, access to the vast majority of sources remains limited to those who can read classical texts in their original language. The translation of Tōrei Enji's text constitutes my response to this lack of sources. It provides the first integral translation of Tōrei's major work, The Treatise on the Inexhaustible Lamp of Zen, and enables us to get a firsthand account of meditation practice in the tradition that has shaped today's monastic life. Tōrei's treatise details the whole process of meditation, which remains almost identical to the curriculum of today's monks.
