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我今天八点半就起床。我一边喝一杯咖啡一边看LJ.我十一点要看中国电视。我二点要去工作。现在我写中文，以后我要听中文录音。今天我不忙。我能看书和学中文。我高兴。
My interest in Chinese history actually started a couple years ago watching Kung Fu movies. One of the first ones I saw was "Once Upon a Time in China 2". I was a little confused by the White Lotus Society and what was going on historically during that time period and started reading books about the Qing. Since then my interests have gone back much further in Chinese history but when I saw a book on the White Lotus on amazon I couldn't pass it up.
The book is called The White Lotus:Teachings in Chinese Religious History by B.J. ter Haar. While it looks entirely at the period of Chinese history I don't normally read, from the Song to the Qing, I found it to be a wonderful and informative and very well written book. Ter Haar makes great use of both primary and secoundary sources and scholarship. He included both Japanese, Western and Chinese scholarship in his work and as such is a great way of seeing a broader world view on the subject without speaking all those languages yourself. The scope of the book, roughly a thousand years of history, is a huge undertaking but one I think he handled very well.
He starts by looking at lay Buddhist organizations during the Song and Yuan. He looks at the origins of white lotus societies from this time, and compares how they fitted in with other lay Buddhist organisations. I found the descriptions of lay Buddhism to be entirely fascinating. I liked the idea of the Fields of Merit, good deeds that were done to help with rebirth in the western paradise. My favorite of these was distributing free tea to weary travelers. I can't explain why but this just struck me as a wonderful religious practice. Perhaps cause it was so simple and accepting, and also I think because I just like tea so much. Ter Haar also quoted from a letter from lay Buddhists that stated that as they were from the same religious affiliation they did not need to seek a go between, or approval from their families for marriage. These seemed quite revolutionary and had all kinds of interesting implications. However despite some rather untraditional practices the main theme of the opening chapters of the book seemed to be how well accepted and normal the White Lotus society, and similar lay organisations were. Frequently Confucian scholars would lend their approval or calligraphy to these organisations.
Arguments against the White Lotus Movement during this time took the form of accusations or labels that were used against all heterodox religious movements. Ter Haar argues that these statements should be viewed as labels, specific phrases used to indicate that something was a disapproved of organisation, rather than a description of the actual activities of the organisation itself. The three labels he discussed were, "gathering at night and dispersing at dawn", "men and women intermingling indiscriminatingly" and my favorite, "eating vegetables and serving devils".
There is little that is written about the White Lotus movement during the early Ming, however in later times it's name becomes associated with uprisings and rebellions. Rather than seeing the movement as transformed Ter Haar with a careful study and analysis of the source material looks at the way this belief came about.Ming law codes condemned white lotus teachings as heterodoxy and punishable offenses, often capital offences for the leaders, and banishment for the followers. However few people were actually punished under these laws. Similar to the with craft persecutions in medieval Europe, it seems that most of the uses of the term, "White Lotus Teachings" were inserted by the elite during questioning and torture of prisoners. (I'm simplify the argument here due to being sleepy and not wanting to write too much.) In short the elite started to view any "heterodox teachings" as being "white lotus teachings" this included a variety of beliefs including Christianity. But had little to do with any organisations or conspiracies that actually existed. This belief that what was being described was a consistent and systematic form of belief and a coherent series of movements was an idea that was popular in the late Qing and Ter Haar argues has led to many misunderstandings in later historical research.
In his look at the way these arguments developed Ter Haar looks at the sorcery scare of 1557. I found the descriptions of the scare to be really interesting. People were afraid of creatures that he termed "black disasters", these creatures were able to fly and served evil magicians. He also looked at later sorcery scares. There men were afraid that their ques were going to be cut off by paper men. They viewed these paper men as the creatures of evil magicians who were likely to be the outsiders from society. In several cases Christians were arrested and executed for having paper men and being seen as magicians. I found the look into the various sorcery scares to be really interesting. The book touched in several places on millenarian practices and apocalyptic teachings and it's definitely an area I find really fascinating and hope to study more.
I feel I'm not doing this book justice in my descriptions of it, I feel like I cannot write well today. But this book was a really fascinating work that obviously had years and years of research gone into it. I enjoyed the in-depth look at early lay Buddhism, and the re-evaluation of the traditional historical view based on a more in-depth look at original sources, their place in time, and the way these sources were used by later historians in the 18th 19th and 20th century. Truly a well written and researched and controversial book.
The book is called The White Lotus:Teachings in Chinese Religious History by B.J. ter Haar. While it looks entirely at the period of Chinese history I don't normally read, from the Song to the Qing, I found it to be a wonderful and informative and very well written book. Ter Haar makes great use of both primary and secoundary sources and scholarship. He included both Japanese, Western and Chinese scholarship in his work and as such is a great way of seeing a broader world view on the subject without speaking all those languages yourself. The scope of the book, roughly a thousand years of history, is a huge undertaking but one I think he handled very well.
He starts by looking at lay Buddhist organizations during the Song and Yuan. He looks at the origins of white lotus societies from this time, and compares how they fitted in with other lay Buddhist organisations. I found the descriptions of lay Buddhism to be entirely fascinating. I liked the idea of the Fields of Merit, good deeds that were done to help with rebirth in the western paradise. My favorite of these was distributing free tea to weary travelers. I can't explain why but this just struck me as a wonderful religious practice. Perhaps cause it was so simple and accepting, and also I think because I just like tea so much. Ter Haar also quoted from a letter from lay Buddhists that stated that as they were from the same religious affiliation they did not need to seek a go between, or approval from their families for marriage. These seemed quite revolutionary and had all kinds of interesting implications. However despite some rather untraditional practices the main theme of the opening chapters of the book seemed to be how well accepted and normal the White Lotus society, and similar lay organisations were. Frequently Confucian scholars would lend their approval or calligraphy to these organisations.
Arguments against the White Lotus Movement during this time took the form of accusations or labels that were used against all heterodox religious movements. Ter Haar argues that these statements should be viewed as labels, specific phrases used to indicate that something was a disapproved of organisation, rather than a description of the actual activities of the organisation itself. The three labels he discussed were, "gathering at night and dispersing at dawn", "men and women intermingling indiscriminatingly" and my favorite, "eating vegetables and serving devils".
There is little that is written about the White Lotus movement during the early Ming, however in later times it's name becomes associated with uprisings and rebellions. Rather than seeing the movement as transformed Ter Haar with a careful study and analysis of the source material looks at the way this belief came about.Ming law codes condemned white lotus teachings as heterodoxy and punishable offenses, often capital offences for the leaders, and banishment for the followers. However few people were actually punished under these laws. Similar to the with craft persecutions in medieval Europe, it seems that most of the uses of the term, "White Lotus Teachings" were inserted by the elite during questioning and torture of prisoners. (I'm simplify the argument here due to being sleepy and not wanting to write too much.) In short the elite started to view any "heterodox teachings" as being "white lotus teachings" this included a variety of beliefs including Christianity. But had little to do with any organisations or conspiracies that actually existed. This belief that what was being described was a consistent and systematic form of belief and a coherent series of movements was an idea that was popular in the late Qing and Ter Haar argues has led to many misunderstandings in later historical research.
In his look at the way these arguments developed Ter Haar looks at the sorcery scare of 1557. I found the descriptions of the scare to be really interesting. People were afraid of creatures that he termed "black disasters", these creatures were able to fly and served evil magicians. He also looked at later sorcery scares. There men were afraid that their ques were going to be cut off by paper men. They viewed these paper men as the creatures of evil magicians who were likely to be the outsiders from society. In several cases Christians were arrested and executed for having paper men and being seen as magicians. I found the look into the various sorcery scares to be really interesting. The book touched in several places on millenarian practices and apocalyptic teachings and it's definitely an area I find really fascinating and hope to study more.
I feel I'm not doing this book justice in my descriptions of it, I feel like I cannot write well today. But this book was a really fascinating work that obviously had years and years of research gone into it. I enjoyed the in-depth look at early lay Buddhism, and the re-evaluation of the traditional historical view based on a more in-depth look at original sources, their place in time, and the way these sources were used by later historians in the 18th 19th and 20th century. Truly a well written and researched and controversial book.
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