Minimalism and Pragmatism in a Chan Gongan Commentary: Philosophical Reflections on Tongxuan's 100 Questions
Article
Heine, S, Cao, X. (2024). Minimalism and Pragmatism in a Chan Gongan Commentary: Philosophical Reflections on Tongxuan's 100 Questions
. JOURNAL OF CHINESE PHILOSOPHY, 51(2-3), 123-136. 10.1163/15406253-12340135
Heine, S, Cao, X. (2024). Minimalism and Pragmatism in a Chan Gongan Commentary: Philosophical Reflections on Tongxuan's 100 Questions
. JOURNAL OF CHINESE PHILOSOPHY, 51(2-3), 123-136. 10.1163/15406253-12340135
This paper provides a translation of the first twenty-five cases of the gongan collection, Tongxuan's 100 Questions (Tongxuan Baiwen《》), which features terse responses to Tongxuan's queries proffered by Wansong Xingxiu along with verse comments added by his main disciple Linquan Conglun. The conciseness expressed by leading Caodong school thinkers at the dawn of the Yuan period creates a minimalist discourse replete with paradox, indirection, and deceptively artless depictions of nature to disclose a pragmatist view of realization that seeks to situate Chan as the basis for the three teachings of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism.