The way
50-895: Blue Cliff Monastery is an 80-acre (0.32 km) Thiền Buddhist monastery located in Pine Bush, New York . It was founded in May 2007 by monastic and lay practitioners from the Plum Village Tradition . The monastery is under the direction of Thích Nhất Hạnh 's Order of Interbeing in the Thiền tradition. Blue Cliff Monastery follows the same practices and daily schedules as its root monastery Plum Village and its sister monasteries Deer Park Monastery in Escondido, California , and Magnolia Grove Monastery in Batesville, Mississippi . Blue Cliff Monastery
100-533: A Commentary on The Diamond Sutra, as well as poetry. The first truly Vietnamese Thiền school was founded by the religious emperor Trần Nhân Tông (1258–1308), who became a monk. This was the Trúc Lâm or "Bamboo Grove" school, which evinced a deep influence from Confucian and Taoist philosophy. It seems to have been an elite religion for aristocrats and was also promoted by Chinese monks who traveled to Vietnam to teach. Nevertheless, Trúc Lâm's prestige waned over
150-424: A pejorative reference to biographies and histories whose authors are perceived to be uncritical or excessively reverential toward their subject. Hagiography constituted an important literary genre in the early Christian church , providing some informational history along with the more inspirational stories and legends . A hagiographic account of an individual saint could consist of a biography ( vita ),
200-550: A description of the saint's deeds or miracles, an account of the saint's martyrdom ( passio ), or be a combination of these. The genre of lives of the saints first came into being in the Roman Empire as legends about Christian martyrs were recorded. The dates of their deaths formed the basis of martyrologies . In the 4th century, there were three main types of catalogs of lives of the saints: The earliest lives of saints focused on desert fathers who lived as ascetics from
250-575: A hostile government, Vietnamese Mahayana and Theravada Buddhists formed the Unified Buddhist Sangha . Thích Trí Quang led South Vietnamese Buddhists in acts of civil resistance in protest of the South Vietnamese government's repression of Buddhists during the " Buddhist crisis " of '63. Thiền master Thích Thanh Từ (1924–2022) is credited for renovating Trúc Lâm in Vietnam . He was one of
300-551: A largely illiterate audience. Hagiography provided priests and theologians with classical handbooks in a form that allowed them the rhetorical tools necessary to present their faith through the example of the saints' lives. Of all the English hagiographers no one was more prolific nor so aware of the importance of the genre as Abbot Ælfric of Eynsham . His work Lives of the Saints contains set of sermons on saints' days, formerly observed by
350-571: A version of Vietnamese Buddhist history that "was self-consciously constructed with the composition of the Thiền uyển in medieval Vietnam." Cuong Tu Nguyen notes that the kind of Buddhism which was practiced in Vietnam during the Chinese occupation period and before the writing of the Thiền uyển was "a mixture of thaumaturgy , asceticism , and ritualism" which was "very worldly engaged." Buddhist culture, literature, arts and architecture thrived during
400-469: A view which receives endorsement from the state, motivated, as are many lay Buddhists, to attach itself to an authentic national tradition that is not sullied by the taint of superstition....Today, the Communist Party seeks to boost its legitimacy by endorsing Zen a version of Buddhism promoted by a transnational movement, as an authentic national tradition. Thiền draws its texts and practices mainly from
450-432: Is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a preacher, priest, founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies might consist of a biography or vita (from Latin vita , life, which begins the title of most medieval biographies), a description of the saint's deeds or miracles, an account of
500-625: Is also a very widespread practice, as in all schools of Zen. Due to the presence of Theravada Buddhism in Vietnam , Thiên has also been influenced by Theravada practices. The intra-religious dialogue between Vietnamese Theravada and Mahayana following the formation of the Unified Buddhist Church also led to a more inclusive attitude in the Vietnamese Buddhist community. An example is the widely influential figure of Thích Nhất Hạnh , who, as John Chapman notes, though being part of
550-583: Is considered the founder of Thiền, traveled to Vietnam after completing his studies with Sengcan , the third Patriarch of Chan. However, Chan was already present in the country before his arrival. "Thiền Buddhism was already established in Vietnam before Vinītaruci's arrival, for Phap Hien studied under and was ... After Vinītaruci's death, Phap Hien built the Temple of Chung-thien at Mount Tu, about twenty miles northwest of Luy Lâu ." The sect that Vinītaruci and his lone Vietnamese disciple founded would become known as
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#1733086143424600-411: Is located in the lush, green Hudson Valley of New York (one hour and 30 minutes away from NYC). Inside the property there are two ponds and a creek, and out of its 80 acres, 65 are forest. Visitors are welcome to practice mindfulness with the multifold community of monks, nuns and laypeople. Typically, days of mindfulness are held twice a week (Thursdays and Sundays). Retreats are held frequently throughout
650-534: Is synthetic and unified rather than divided and sectarian. At present the popular method of practice is meditation during recitation and recitation during meditation - meditation and recitation being one and the same for Vietnamese Buddhists. This practice is known as the "union of Zen and Pure-Land recitation". The chanting of sutras, such as the Lotus sutra , the Vimalakirti , Surangama Samadhi and Mahaparinirvana sutra
700-586: The Cornish-language works Beunans Meriasek and Beunans Ke , about the lives of Saints Meriasek and Kea , respectively. Other examples of hagiographies from England include: Ireland is notable in its rich hagiographical tradition, and for the large amount of material which was produced during the Middle Ages. Irish hagiographers wrote primarily in Latin while some of the later saint's lives were written in
750-564: The Ge'ez language are known as gadl (Saint's Life). There are some 200 hagiographies about indigenous saints. They are among the most important Medieval Ethiopian written sources, and some have accurate historical information. They are written by the disciples of the saints. Some were written a long time after the death of a saint, but others were written not long after the saint's demise. Fragments from an Old Nubian hagiography of Saint Michael are extant. Jewish hagiographic writings are common in
800-516: The Martyrology of Tallaght and the Félire Óengusso . Such hagiographical calendars were important in establishing lists of native Irish saints, in imitation of continental calendars. In the 10th century, a Byzantine monk Simeon Metaphrastes was the first one to change the genre of lives of the saints into something different, giving it a moralizing and panegyrical character. His catalog of lives of
850-558: The Middle Chinese word 禪 ( chán ), an abbreviation of 禪那 ( chánnà ; thiền na), which is a transliteration of the Sanskrit word dhyāna (" meditation "). Chinese Chan Buddhism was introduced during the early Chinese domination of Vietnam , 111 BCE to 939 CE, which also accommodated local animism and Cham influences. According to traditional accounts, in 580, an Indian monk named Vinītaruci ( Vietnamese : Tì-ni-đa-lưu-chi ) who
900-437: The 16th. Production remained dynamic and kept pace with scholarly developments in historical biographical writing until 1925, when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (d. 1938) placed an interdiction on Ṣūfī brotherhoods. As Turkey relaxed legal restrictions on Islamic practice in the 1950s and the 1980s, Ṣūfīs returned to publishing hagiography, a trend which continues in the 21st century. The pseudobiography of L. Ron Hubbard compiled by
950-490: The 1930s, a Buddhist reform movement led by intellectual clergy of " engaged Buddhism " focused on non-violent social and political activities such as peacemaking , promotion of human rights , environmental protection , rural development , combatting ethnic violence , opposition to warfare , and support of women's rights . The modernization movement also protested against popular devotion, arguing that Buddhism should be "purified from superstition". In 1963, in response to
1000-512: The 4th century onwards. The life of Anthony of Egypt is usually considered the first example of this new genre of Christian biography. In Western Europe , hagiography was one of the more important vehicles for the study of inspirational history during the Middle Ages . The Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine compiled a great deal of medieval hagiographic material, with a strong emphasis on miracle tales. Lives were often written to promote
1050-526: The Chinese Chan tradition as well as other schools of Chinese Buddhism . According to Thích Thiên-Ân : Most Buddhist monks and laymen in Vietnam traditionally obey the disciplines of Hinayana , recite mantra , learn mudra , practice meditation , and chant the Buddha's name (V. niệm Phật , Ch. Nien-fo , J. Nembutsu ) without any conflict between the practices. We may say, in short, that Buddhism in Vietnam
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#17330861434241100-665: The English Church. The text comprises two prefaces, one in Latin and one in Old English , and 39 lives beginning on 25 December with the nativity of Christ and ending with three texts to which no saints' days are attached. The text spans the entire year and describes the lives of many saints, both English and continental, and harks back to some of the earliest saints of the early church. There are two known instances where saint's lives were adapted into vernacular plays in Britain. These are
1150-969: The Lam Te school, also included Theravada as part of his studies. Thích Nhất Hạnh also wrote commentaries on the Theravada Satipatthana sutta and the Anapanasati sutta. According to Chapman , Hạnh sought to "promote the idea of a humanistic, unified Buddhism." He founded the Order of Interbeing as a new modernist and humanistic form of Vietnamese Zen. McHale also notes that Vietnamese Buddhist practice has always been inclusive and accepting of popular beliefs and practices, including folk religion , Taoism and Confucianism . Hagiography A hagiography ( / ˌ h æ ɡ i ˈ ɒ ɡ r ə f i / ; from Ancient Greek ἅγιος , hagios 'holy' and -γραφία , -graphia 'writing')
1200-467: The Sikh Janamsakhis ) concerning saints, gurus and other individuals believed to be imbued with sacred power. Hagiographic works, especially those of the Middle Ages , can incorporate a record of institutional and local history , and evidence of popular cults , customs, and traditions . However, when referring to modern, non-ecclesiastical works, the term hagiography is often used today as
1250-628: The West was Thích Thiên-Ân , who taught philosophy at University of California, Los Angeles and founded a meditation center in L.A. In recent years, the modernization of Thiền has taken a new global dimension, as Vietnamese Zen is becoming influenced by the teachings of influential overseas Vietnamese Buddhist leaders such as Thích Nhất Hạnh who have adopted Thiền to Western needs. As a result, Vietnamese Buddhists have also now begun to practice these modernized forms of Thiền. This modernist form of Thiền has become quite popular at home and abroad, in spite of
1300-772: The case of Talmudic and Kabbalistic writings and later in the Hasidic movement. Hagiography in Islam began in the Arabic language with biographical writing about the Prophet Muhammad in the 8th century CE, a tradition known as sīra . From about the 10th century CE, a genre generally known as manāqib also emerged, which comprised biographies of the imams ( madhāhib ) who founded different schools of Islamic thought ( madhhab ) about shariʿa , and of Ṣūfī saints . Over time, hagiography about Ṣūfīs and their miracles came to predominate in
1350-524: The cult of local or national states, and in particular to develop pilgrimages to visit relics . The bronze Gniezno Doors of Gniezno Cathedral in Poland are the only Romanesque doors in Europe to feature the life of a saint. The life of Saint Adalbert of Prague , who is buried in the cathedral, is shown in 18 scenes, probably based on a lost illuminated copy of one of his Lives. The Bollandist Society continues
1400-457: The fact that there is still no complete freedom of religion in contemporary Vietnam. Commenting on the current situation in Vietnam, Philip Taylor writes: The flow of Buddhist practitioners, texts and ideas throughout Vietnam and across national boundaries sets the context for another recent development in Buddhism in Vietnam, the increasing prominence given in northern Vietnam to Zen (Thiền) as
1450-630: The following centuries after the Ming conquest (1413-1428) which led to a period of Confucian dominance. In the 17th century, a group of Chinese monks led by Nguyên Thiều established a vigorous new school, the Lâm Tế , based on the Linji school , which mixed Chan and Pure Land Buddhism . A more domesticated offshoot of Lâm Tế, the Liễu Quán , was founded in the 18th century by a monk by the name of Liễu Quán . Lâm Tế remains
1500-512: The genre of manāqib . Likewise influenced by early Islamic research into hadiths and other biographical information about the Prophet, Persian scholars began writing Persian hagiography , again mainly of Sūfī saints, in the eleventh century CE. The Islamicisation of the Turkish regions led to the development of Turkish biographies of saints, beginning in the 13th century CE and gaining pace around
1550-512: The hagiographer's native vernacular Irish . Of particular note are the lives of St. Patrick , St. Columba (Latin)/Colum Cille (Irish) and St. Brigit/Brigid —Ireland's three patron saints. The earliest extant Life was written by Cogitosus . Additionally, several Irish calendars relating to the feastdays of Christian saints (sometimes called martyrologies or feastologies ) contained abbreviated synopses of saint's lives, which were compiled from many different sources. Notable examples include
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1600-402: The hero-warrior figure, but with the distinction that the saint is of a spiritual sort. Imitation of the life of Christ was then the benchmark against which saints were measured, and imitation of the lives of saints was the benchmark against which the general population measured itself. In Anglo-Saxon and medieval England, hagiography became a literary genre par excellence for the teaching of
1650-664: The largest monastic order in the country today. Beside the Linji school , the Caodong school was first introduced to Northern Vietnam through Thiền master Thông Giác Thủy Nguyệt (通覺水月, 1637-1704), who traveled to China and practiced under Chan master Yiju Zhijiao (一句智教, 30th generation of Caodong school) in Huzhou region , Zhejiang province , China . After three years of practice there, he achieved enlightenment and received inka from Master Zhijiao. He then returned to Vietnam and began to preach Buddhism . Thông Giác Thủy Nguyệt's successor
1700-523: The most prominent and influential Thiền masters of the 20th and early 21st century. He was a disciple of Master Thích Thiện Hoa . The most famous practitioner of modern Thiền Buddhism in the West was Thích Nhất Hạnh (1926–2022) who authored dozens of books and founded the Plum Village Monastery in France together with his colleague, Thiền Master bhikkhuni Chân Không . Another influential teacher in
1750-635: The oldest branch of Thiền. After a period of obscurity, the Vinītaruci School (Diệt Hỉ Thiền phái; 滅喜禪派) became one of the most influential Buddhist groups in Vietnam by the 10th century, particularly so under the patriarch Vạn Hạnh (died 1018). Other Thiền schools were founded during this time, such as the Pháp Vân Temple lineage. Other early Vietnamese Thiền schools included that of the Chinese monk Wu Yantong , called Vô Ngôn Thông in Vietnamese, which
1800-481: The original life stories of their first saints, e.g. Boris and Gleb , Theodosius Pechersky etc. In the 16th century, Metropolitan Macarius expanded the list of the Russian saints and supervised the compiling process of their life stories. They would all be compiled in the so-called Velikiye chet'yi-minei catalog (Великие Четьи-Минеи, or Great Menaion Reader ), consisting of 12 volumes in accordance with each month of
1850-497: The period of peace and stability of the four Vietnamese dynasties of the Early Lê , Lý , Trần and the Later Lê (980-1400). During the early Lê and Lý periods, Buddhism became an influential force in court politics and the dynastic elites saw Buddhist clergy as useful assistants in their political agenda which they provided in return for patronage. They were eventually integrated into
1900-405: The popular heroic poem, such as Beowulf , one finds that they share certain common features. In Beowulf , the titular character battles against Grendel and his mother , while the saint, such as Athanasius ' Anthony (one of the original sources for the hagiographic motif) or the character of Guthlac , battles against figures no less substantial in a spiritual sense. Both genres then focus on
1950-462: The quintessential Vietnamese Buddhist tradition....Southern Vietnam's intense transnational connections have enabled the repatriation and the circulation to elsewhere in Vietnam of the markedly meditative form of Buddhism developed by Vietnamese emigre monks based in the United States and France...Ironically, this recently imported purified form of Buddhism has come to be taken as a national tradition,
2000-751: The saint's martyrdom (called a passio ), or be a combination of these. Christian hagiographies focus on the lives, and notably the miracles , ascribed to men and women canonized by the Roman Catholic church , the Eastern Orthodox Church , the Oriental Orthodox churches , and the Church of the East . Other religious traditions such as Buddhism , Hinduism , Taoism , Islam , Sikhism and Jainism also create and maintain hagiographical texts (such as
2050-512: The saints became the standard for all of the Western and Eastern hagiographers, who would create relative biographies and images of the ideal saints by gradually departing from the real facts of their lives. Over the years, the genre of lives of the saints had absorbed a number of narrative plots and poetic images (often, of pre-Christian origin, such as dragon fighting etc.), mediaeval parables , short stories and anecdotes . The genre of lives of
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2100-621: The saints was introduced in the Slavic world in the Bulgarian Empire in the late 9th and early 10th century, where the first original hagiographies were produced on Cyril and Methodius , Clement of Ohrid and Naum of Preslav . Eventually the Bulgarians brought this genre to Kievan Rus' together with writing and also in translations from the Greek language. In the 11th century, they began to compile
2150-554: The structure of the imperial state. During the Lý and Trần dynasties, a "new" court Buddhism arose among the elites which was aligned with Chinese Chan and influenced by Chan literature. Some of the Trần rulers were quite involved in the development of Thiền Buddhism. Trần Thái Tông (1218–77) was known as the "Great Monk King" and wrote various important Buddhist works including Instructions on Emptiness (Khóa Hư Lục) , A Guide to Zen Buddhism and
2200-438: The study, academic assembly, appraisal and publication of materials relating to the lives of Christian saints (see Acta Sanctorum ). Many of the important hagiographical texts composed in medieval England were written in the vernacular dialect Anglo-Norman . With the introduction of Latin literature into England in the 7th and 8th centuries the genre of the life of the saint grew increasingly popular. When one contrasts it to
2250-712: The year. Thi%E1%BB%81n Buddhist The "goal" Background Chinese texts Classical Post-classical Contemporary Zen in Japan Seon in Korea Thiền in Vietnam Western Zen Thiền Buddhism ( Vietnamese : Thiền tông , 禪宗 , IPA: [tʰîən təwŋm] ) is the name for the Vietnamese school of Zen Buddhism . Thiền is the Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation of
2300-511: The year. They were revised and expanded by St. Dimitry of Rostov in 1684–1705. The Life of Alexander Nevsky was a particularly notable hagiographic work of the era. Today, the works in the genre of lives of the saints represent a valuable historical source and reflection of different social ideas, world outlook and aesthetic concepts of the past. The Oriental Orthodox Churches also have their own hagiographic traditions. For instance, Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church hagiographies in
2350-660: Was Thiền master Chân Dung Tông Diễn (真融宗演, 1640–1711), who became famous for his piety and critical role in resolving the Buddhist problem during the Lê Trung Hưng dynasty . Similar to Chan Buddhism in the Ming and Qing dynasties, this lineage also focuses on both Zen and Pure Land practice, of which Zen practice is the major thread. The first supreme patriarch of the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha, Venerable Thích Đức Nhuận (1897-1993),
2400-673: Was a disciple of the school. The main temple is the Hòe Nhai pagoda (also called Hồng Phúc tự), located in Ba Đình district , Hanoi . Vietnamese Buddhism suffered from political oppression during the colonial era of French Indochina , both by pro-Confucian mandarins and French colonial policies. Modern Vietnamese Thiền was influenced by the Buddhist modernism of figures like Taixu and D. T. Suzuki , who saw Buddhism in terms of social and personal transformation, rather than in supernatural terms. During
2450-464: Was associated with the teaching of Mazu Daoyi . Information about these schools can be gleaned from a Chinese language hagiographical work entitled Thiền uyển tập anh ("Compendium of Outstanding figures of the Chan Garden" c. 1337). A careful study of the primary sources by Cuong Tu Nguyen however concludes that the legend of Vinītaruci and the accounts of Vô Ngôn Thông are probably fabrications,
2500-637: Was created when the monastics moved from Maple Forest Monastery and the Green Mountain Dharma Center . In 1997 Maple Forest Monastery was founded in Woodstock, Vermont , and a year later Green Mountain Dharma Center was founded in Hartland, Vermont . Maple Forest was the monks' residence and Green Mountain was the nuns' residence. In May 2007 both centers moved to Blue Cliff Monastery. The Monastery
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