Zen Matters

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel

Abstract

Zen Matters
This interdisciplinary panel of religious studies scholars and art historians focuses on the material culture of Zen Buddhism in Japan. It asks religious studies scholars to consider the material objects of Zen, not just its texts, doctrines or rituals, and it asks art historians to consider everyday objects, not just elite art masterworks. This panel thereby amplifies our understanding of the ways in which tangible substances and constructs have functioned within an ostensibly insubstantial tradition.
The first paper, “Materializing the Zen Monastery,” focuses on the material demands of constructing Dōgen’s (1200-1253) ideal monastic setting in Japan. The second paper, “Thy Rod and Thy Staff They Discomfort Me,” analyzes the material implements of discipline within the monastery such as Zen staffs, flywhisks, and other hand-held implements of training and authority. The third paper, “Zen Sells Zen Things,” provides another perspective on the topic of Zen materiality, as it investigates contemporary Zen retail by an American Zen monastery. A formal response by a leading scholar of Zen Buddhism reflects on the triple entendre of the panel’s title, as these Zen matters (material/visual objects) reveal much about Zen matters (concepts, issues) that greatly matter (in the predicate sense) to both lay and monastic communities. In this way, this panel offers AAS members from multiple disciplines the opportunity to hear and discuss these papers well in advance of their publication in Zen and Material Culture (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Area of Study

• Japan

Session Organizer

• Pamela Denise Winfield, Elon University

Chair

• John Tucker, East Carolina University

Individual Presentations

• Materializing the Zen Monastery - Pamela Denise Winfield, Elon University

• Thy Rod and Thy Staff They Discomfort Me: Wielding Zen Staffs and Related Implements - Steven Heine, Florida International University

• Zen Sells Zen Things: Meditation Supply, Right Livelihood, and Buddhist Retail - Gregory P.A. Levine, University of California, Berkeley

Discussant

• Helen Baroni, University of Hawai'i at Manoa