ABSTRACT Panoramic perspectives interfuse multiple views on the same scene, out of which emerges a vision none held alone. Such synergistic dynamics are reflected in practices of visualization, on which Huayan and Pure Land Buddhism offer particularly illuminating perspectives. Their canonical accounts, including the Avataṃsaka Sūtra and Amitāyus Contemplation Sūtra, find multimedia parallels...
ABSTRACT This research investigates the breath-centered therapeutic concepts and methods advocated by Zhiyi 智顗 (538–597), a distinguished Chinese Buddhist scholar-monk. It focuses on two significant changes he initiated. First, it studies Zhiyi’s reinterpretation of traditional Buddhist concepts of breath, highlighting its transition from a tool for concentration to a diagnostic device. Second,...
ABSTRACT This reception study argues that a fourteenth-century handscroll illustrating the Yandang mountains (Yandangshan 雁蕩山) in Zhejiang Province was used by fifteenth-and sixteenth-century viewers as an aid in their meditation practice to achieve relief from the ailments of old age. They engaged in one set of contemplative practices as the scroll was unrolled and another set as it was...