James Benn (McMaster University)

In the later Chinese Buddhist tradition one text above all others has been extolled for the profundity of its ideas, the beauty of its language, and its insight into the practice of meditation—this is the scripture popularly known as the Lengyan jing or Śūraṃgama sutra (Scripture of the Heroic March). In this talk, I will look at the Śūraṃgamasutra’s general prescriptions for meditation. I will indicate some specific examples of methods of mental cultivation described by the scripture and taken up by later Buddhist practitioners. Finally, I will talk about how the scripture elucidates in detail some of the potential dangers of meditation for the practitioner.