Synopsis and critique

Chapter 3:

1. the employment of the term "popular religion" itself is ideological and fraught with interested claims that presume the division between higher religion and vulgar, cultic popular culture. I think that this trend of thinking can be traced back to Colonialism that depicts Christianity as the "high" "theistic" religion whereas indigenous religion, as lesser forms of religion or superstition, was encompassed under the umbrella term "popular religion" today.

“A protean phenomenon, popular culture is the totality of everyday tactics through which subaltern classes reappropriate the discourse imposed upon them. Therefore, it does constitute a system."

2. The two-tiered model is problematized. Instead of a hierarchical and vertical model, a horizontal, multilateral and multipolar model would better capture the relation between different religious actors and momentum. A dichotomy of order/transgression is more fundamental. In all, we should observe "an intertwining of - or a transferential relationship among - antagonistic or analogous segments of each of these religious traditions" (95)

Chapter 5.

1. Thaumaturges as mediators between the worlds of samsara and nirvana.

- the Chan critique of shentong/abhijna: polemical as well as soteriological. Since all dharmas are empty and only manifestations of phenomenon, there is no point in performing abhijna that are only conditioned appearances.

Chapter 6.

1. "One strategy in Chan for domesticating the occult was to transform thaumaturges into tricksters by playing down their occult powers and stressing their this-worldly aspects" (114).

The transition from the emphasis on thaumaturges to tricksters to the bodhisattva path - an evolution toward this-worldly values.

Chapter 7.

Relics as a mediator between the otherworldly and this-worldly, and bridges the gap between life and death. Creamation "symbolizes the sudden teaching" by reducing "to a minimum the transition between death and rebirth" (135-6).

"the attempt to localize the sacred could of course be seen as contradiction the "sudden" chan emphasis on the "unloalized" (143).