Robert Sharf: "On the Origins and Allure of Encounter Dialogue"

Abstract:

My talk will examine the roots, literary character, and distinctive appeal of “encounter dialogue”—the sharp, witty repartee between master and student commonly associated with Zen. While often said to have emerged with Chan in the Tang dynasty, its precursors can be traced back many centuries. Striking examples can be found in the Shishuo xinyu 世說新語 compiled in the fifth century, and going even further back, in Lokakseṃa’s Eastern Han translation of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra. Here we find amusing exchanges that display all the hallmarks of later Chan dialogues: humor, reversal and one-upmanship, delight in paradox, punning and wordplay, and a penchant for “showing” over “saying.” These early materials also grapple with topics that would later preoccupy Chan writers, including the limits of language and the sudden/gradual controversy. This talk will explore the distinctive literary and rhetorical dynamics of these dialogues and argue that Chan is more exegetically grounded in tradition than is often assumed.

Bio:

Robert Sharf is D. H. Chen Distinguished Professor of Buddhist Studies in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as Chair of Berkeley's Numata Center for Buddhist Studies. He is author, most recently, of What Can’t Be Said: Contradiction and Paradox in East Asian Thought(coauthored with Yasuo Deguchi, Jay Garfield, and Graham Priest, 2021); and How to Lose Yourself: An Ancient Guide to Letting Go (co-authored with Jay Garfield and Maria Heim, 2025). A two-volume collection of Chinese translations of his articles appeared in 2022 under the titles 夏復禪學自選集 (Sharf’s selected essays on Chan studies), and 夏復密教研究自選集 (Sharf’s selected essays on Esoteric Buddhism).