Introduction: Zen at the Core

While conducting research on contemporary Buddhist practice in Hanoi from 1997 to 1998, people frequently brought up the subject of Zen [Thiển] mummies. These mummies were said to have been exceptional Zen masters whose level of spiritual attainment was so high that when they died sitting in meditation, their bodies naturally preserved. The mummies would be lacquered and worshipped as holy relics. Their mummified remains were evidence of the mastery of these monks over meditative techniques. At the same time, a nationalist sentiment was vicariously given support by their remains, with people proudly pointing to them to show the achievements of Buddhism in Vietnam. Viewing these mummies from time to time at famous pagodas in the vicinity of Hanoi, however, would prove the closest I would come to Zen Buddhism in Vietnam during that period. My observations were reflected in Cuong Tu Nguyen's description:

While Cuong Tu Nguyen's statement agrees with my own experience, he goes contrary to the few available descriptions of Vietnamese Buddhism. Since at least the early twentieth century, Zen has been taken by academics and practitioners alike as the core of Vietnamese Buddhism, though there has clearly been a tendency since as early as the fourteenth century to favour Zen in written accounts of Buddhism in Vietnam. A text called the Thiển Uyển Tập Anh (Outstanding Figures in the Zen Community [of Vietnam]), discovered by Trần Văn Giáp, was central to this construction. It was intended to be a narrative history of Vietnamese Zen Buddhism and aims to show that it is a continuation, or development, of the Chinese Zen tradition.