BuddhistRoad Paper 3.1 "Bodhidharma, Meditation, and Medicine: On the Message of a Fragmented Buddhist Medical Text from Dunhuang"

The present essay is devoted to a discussion and analysis of Dunhuang (敦煌) manuscript P. 3181 which features a meditation text attributed to the Buddhist saint and Chan Buddhist (Chin. chanzong 禪宗) patriarch Bodhidharma (d. ca. 530). It is noteworthy because it represents a stage in the development of Chinese Buddhism in which local practitioners of meditation became increasingly influenced by Daoist beliefs and practices. As such, the manuscript under discussion documents the conflation of Chan Buddhism, Buddhist meditation generally conceived, and Daoist practices for the circulation of vital energy of the kind one later encounters in the tradition of internal alchemy (Chin. neidan 內丹). In the course of this presentation, the focus will be on Dunhuang, and how medical beliefs and practices, many of which derived from Daoism, were incorporated into the various systems of belief and practice of local Buddhism.

Chinese Translation

本文主要讨论和分析了敦煌写本P.3181中佛教大师, 禅宗始祖菩提达摩(约公元530年)的禅修文. 值得一提的是, 它代表了汉传佛教发展的一个阶段, 即当地的禅修者越来越受到道教信仰和实践的影响. 该写本记录了禅宗, 一般意义上的佛教禅修和道教任督循环(后期应用于内丹术中)的融合. 本研究主要着眼于敦煌, 探讨许多源于道教的医疗信仰和实践如何被纳入当地佛教的各种信仰和实践体系之中.