Engaging the World as a Stray Saint or Facing the Wall like Bodhidharma? A Debate on Meditation Between Buddhist and Daoist Masters in a Late Qing Hagiographical Novel
Résumé
At least since Song-time neidan treatises, the Daoist tradition has taken inspiration from chan-school meditation techniques. The Quanzhen order, by stressing solitary meditation in the huandu enclosure, has remarkably placed itself in this very tradition. Yet, in a late Qing hagiographical novel about Quanzhen founder Wang Chongyang and his early disciples, one finds a harsh critic of the solitary contemplation by itself. It appears in a comic episode where Liu Chuxuan, one of the “Seven perfected”, defeats Bodhidharma in a duel of words and magic in the peculiar surroundings of a brothel. In a connected episode of the same novel, it is the legendary figure of Baozhi that Wang Chongyang calls in to ruin the ascetic and meditative achievements of his disciple Hao Taigu. In both episodes, what is advocated instead of solitary contemplation is engagement with the world as a stray holy man. Our paper shows how this relates to a feature of Ming Qing hagiographical vernacular narratives: preferring profane ways of salvation in the midst of the laity to haughty withdrawal from the world of dust.