John McRae: "Critiquing The Critique of Buddhist 'Enlightenment Experience' "

Abstract:

What can scholars say about the experience of enlightenment by other Buddhists, either during recent times or in centuries gone by? It's hard enough to tell what emotions other people are feeling, so moments of religious inspiration should be even less accessible to third-person description and analysis. In addition, there are specific cultural and religious reasons why premodern Buddhists did not relate their own spiritual autobiographies. Recently, though, Robert Sharf of the University of California has pointed out that the very concept of "enlightenment experience" is both philosophically incoherent and a modern fixation which has warped our understanding of premodern Buddhism. Although his analysis is in many ways perspicacious, can we bring other evidence to bear on the subject, or are there other ways of considering the issue? In this presentation I will suggest that the burgeoning Chan (Zen) movement of seventh- and eighth-century China represents another historical period in which Buddhists focused strongly on the personal experience of enlightenment, and during which they recognized the elusive quality of meditative attainment, both in ways that resemble the modern period.

Bio:

John McRae, Professor Emeritus, Indiana University
Shinnyo-en Visiting Professor, Religious Studies