ABSTRACT
First, a word about the title, ‘Imagining the portrait of a Chan master’ — as most know, Chinese ‘Chan’ is the same as Japanese ‘Zen’, a transliteration of dhyāna, meditation. Yet in the eighth century, Chan masters were no longer simply meditation masters and they had not yet become Zen masters, those enigmatic eccentrics who have made their mark in contemporary popular culture. It is actually quite difficult to imagine an eighth-century Chan master, as we shall see.
