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

138 Journal of Chinese Religions Ming edition, Iriya (1989, p. 89), and Yang Zengwen’s edition (2001, p. 21) have changed this mistake. The current translation is not affected because the 1975 edition has made corresponding changes in both the Chinese text and the translation (see the Chinese text in the 1975 edition, p. 12). In sum, I am satisfied with the translation and commentary and believe it has set a new standard for textual exegesis in English. Readers in the West probably do not realize that nowadays English translations of ancient Chinese texts have far-reaching impacts in both the Western world and East Asia, as younger generations are no longer equipped with sufficient knowledge of classical Chinese to understand the texts in the original. However, without detailed annotation, these English translations leave a wrong impression among readers that these texts are stable and without divergent interpretations. A meticulously annotated translation, as seen in this book, shows exactly that Zen texts are not stable and consist of multiple versions and many layers of meaning. I recommend this book to readers, especially to someone who wants to sharpen their linguistic skills and their historical understanding of Zen. It is ideal for use in a graduate seminar to teach reading and translation of Zen texts. Or, it could be used as a textbook in a small discussion group for intensive reading. Above all, I believe that this book will become the standard translation of the Linji lu and will be frequently consulted for years to come. JIANG WU, The University of Arizona How Zen Became Zen: The Dispute over Enlightenment and the Formation of Chan Buddhism in Song-Dynasty China MORTEN SCHLÜTTER. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2008. Kuroda Institute Studies in East Asian Buddhism 22. x, 289 pages. ISBN 978-0-8248-3255-1. US$48.00 hardcover. Judged simply by the main title, How Zen Became Zen could easily be misleading, a throwback to a previous era when Zen “scholarship” sought to reveal the evasive essence of Zen teaching. Even as a scholarly subject it could easily be mistaken as a work on, say, the famed Edo period Zen master Hakuin Ekaku 白隠慧鶴 and his codification of kōan usage for the Rinzai school. Neither of these assumptions, or any like them, is true, as the subtitle The Dispute over Enlightenment and the Formation of Chan Buddhism in Song-Dynasty China makes clear. The nature of enlightenment and how to achieve it are at the center of many disputes in Chan, not to mention Buddhism in general. But what Schlütter presents for us here goes well beyond the doctrinal matters that the disputes are ostensibly over, and into the social, political, and economic concerns that animate them. In this sense, How Zen Became Book Reviews 139 Zen is a welcome addition to a growing number of works tethering Chan rhetorical claims to the social environments that inspired them. In the process, Schlütter not only reveals the dynamics behind the famous dispute between the Linji 臨濟 and Caodong 曹洞 factions over the proper way to achieve enlightenment––through active engagement with the kanhua 看話 “observing the phrase” method, referring to the “capping phrase” as the culmination of gong’an 公案 study, on the one hand, or the practice of mozhao 默照 “silent illumination” Chan, on the other. To modern students of Zen, kanhua Chan (J. kanna Zen) is most immediately identified with Hakuin, who used it to provide a systematic foundation for the modern Japanese Rinzai school, while “silent illumination” Chan inspired the teachings of Dōgen Kigen 道元希玄, the founder of the Japanese Sōtō Zen school. One of the book’s strengths lies in its ability to frame the origins of these common Zen associations within the context of debates that emerged in twelfth-century Chan. Schlütter’s argument attempts to marry the realities of the Song Chan monastic institution with the practicalities of economic and political support networks, and to further tie these to polemical developments in the Linji and Caodong factions in the late Song. In order to tackle both his broad and specific aims, Schlütter relies on a wide variety of primary sources–– government manuals, official...