Tracking Bodhidharma: A Journey to the Heart of Chinese Culture

by Andy Ferguson

A fresh take on the life and legacy of the “founding father” of Zen. The life of Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism, has, with the passing of time, been magnified to the scale of myth, turning history into the stuff of legend. Known as the First Patriarch, Bodhidharma brought Zen from South India into China in 500 CE, changing the country forever. In Tracking Bodhidharma , Andrew Ferguson recreates the path of Bodhidharma, traveling through China to the places where the First Patriarch lived and taught. This sacred trail takes Ferguson deep into ancient China, and allows him to explore the origins of Chan [Zen] Buddhism, the cultural aftermath that Bodhidharma left in his wake, and the stories of a man who shaped a civilization. Tracking Bodhidharma offers a previously unheard perspective on the life of Zen’s most important religious leader, while simultaneously showing how that history is relevant to the rapidly developing super-power that is present-day China. By placing Zen Buddhism within the country’s political landscape, Ferguson presents the religion as a counterpoint to other Buddhist sects, a catalyst for some of the most revolutionary moments in China’s history, and as the ancient spiritual core of a country that is every day becoming more an emblem of the modern era.

Genres: Buddhism, Religion, History, Zen, China, Nonfiction, Spirituality

288 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2012

About the author

Born 1951. Andy Ferguson graduated Phi Beta Kappa in Chinese studies from the University of Oregon in 1973.

Reviews

[Eshū · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some interesting information and theories. Overall I found it meh.

[Leanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

As much as I loved the concept of this book, to follow in the footsteps of the first Zen Patriarch Bodhidharma across China, it suffered from some big problems. First, the book's introductory material about the basic outline of Bodhidharma's life is weak. There is a self-published historical novel by an American oncologist called the Blue-Eyed Barbarian, by Gary Takahashi, that does a much better job at explaining who Bodhidharma was and about the basic outline and meaning of his life in terms of Zen Buddhism. This novel is much better at the who, what, where, and why.

Ferguson is also very weak on the non-religious, popular culture aspects of Bodhidharma (One of the first books I read when I moved to Japan: the Founder of Zen in japanese Art and Popular Culture was Daruma by H. Neill McFarlane and that was also a great introduction to these issues).

About the positives: I loved visiting along with Ferguson the temples that Bodhidharma is associated with in China. Especially Shaolin. Ge is a great travel writer and leads tours in China with Bill Porter--great company indeed! He was also excellent on the interchange with Emperor Wu and the significance of that. Unfortunately from this promising point, he then makes wild claims regarding how this early encounter led to the "religion's participation in the war." (At this he is jumping to a different culture, country, and time.

While Ferguson is great in his travel writing, he is not as good in discussing history and philosophy. This could be that he does not have an academic background--though I think he is fluent in Mandarin. He comes at the subject from a very particular perspective that might have worked much better as memoir or as simple straight-forward travel writing, because his arguments regarding Zen Buddhism connection to martial arts, as well as what happened in Japanese Zen during WWII, are not strongly articulated. In fact, at times he comes across as quite bigoted. It is the not uncommon occurrence that an American man has discovered a path from a different culture that works for him, and then turns evangelical. His American Zen Buddhism is his baseline and no other religious tradition is let off the hook. He was surprisingly bigoted with regard to Shin Buddhism and to Japanese Buddhism in general. In his last chapter, "Was Japan to Blame" he starts off in an interesting direction but it falls short. For those interested in Chinese Zen, aka Chan Buddhism, David Hinton has a fantastic book that I highly recommend: a href="https://asianreviewofbooks.com/conten... Root

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned things about the history of Chinese Buddhism, about the current state of Buddhism in China, about what it's like to travel in China, and about the scholarly debates surrounding Bodhidharma's life in China. The text seemed choppy and a little hard to follow. Though perhaps that was because I read most of it a little at a time right before bed.

[Me · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great way to learn about Bodhidharma. A fun and interesting read.

[Brian Griffith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ferguson is a non-presumptuous, appreciative, non-dramatic traveler, following the ancient footprints of his Zen tradition across the mighty but often-politicized landscape of China. His tour of places probably or possibly visited by Bodhidharma is a quietly enjoyable pilgrimage, with the rising appeal of Buddhist practice evident on every side. The quest for the historical Bodhidharma does get complicated, as unraveling ancient traditions always does. But Ferguson discerns important forks in the road of Buddhism's evolution. The "signless" Zen of Bodhidharma parts paths from the rise of "imperial way Buddhism," where devotion to rulers becomes a core element of Buddhist teaching. In exploring the streets of Nanjing, where the palace of the great Buddhist Dharma King Wu stood in the early 500s, Ferguson observes that this was the very spot where imperial way Buddhism reached its climax of arrogance, in the 1937 Japanese "liberation" of Nanjing. All religious traditions need such discerning examination. It's important to expose the reasons and ways by which people choose between religion as a quest for ultimate authority, and religion as a path of simple authenticity in living day by day.

[Maurice Fitzgerald · Rating 1 out of 5]

Typical western middlebrow intellectual show of "superiority" that the western model he talks from has failed is a fact he is completely oblivious to.

[Martha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Andy Ferguson had some issues to settle in this quest. I could not share his passion for the answers and, at times, thought he seemed somewhat naive. He seemed to be so shocked that Buddhism, like any belief system, can be coopted to serve tyranny. I always enjoy meeting the people the writer meets and I met some interesting ones in this book. Reading books so different from my ususal is always exciting and I can discover, well, things like this: Before my bed a moon so bright,/I thought the ground with frost was sown,/I gazed up to that lustrous light,/ Then dropped my head and thought of home. - "Night Thoughts" by Li Bai.

[bibliotekker Holman · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting travelogue through modern and ancient China, with a focus on the myth shrouded life of the founder of Zen. As a practicing Buddhist, the author writes with a different eye than other authors I've read recently, such as American Peter Hessler.

The book is as interesting for what it reveals about modern China and Buddhism, as it is about the foggy shreds of legend that the author follows around the country. There is an interesting aside about Japanese Zen and its influence on or how it was influenced by militant nationalism during the 30's and 40's.

[Lynette Monteiro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reviewed on my blog www.108zenbooks.com/2012/06/04/tracki...

[Jonathan Westbrook · Rating 1 out of 5]

More of a half done travel guide

I was hoping for more of a history of the man or an understanding of the philosophy. Good story but not what I thought it would be