Chan teaching and learning: an aesthetic analysis of its educational import

This study examines the sudden enlightenment sect of Chan (or Zen in Japanese terms) in order to understand various aspects of teaching and learning in the Buddhist tradition in China. To unravel Chan’s educational import, we analyze its aesthetic features through a Western lens in order to highlight significant aspects of the teaching/learning process. Using connections, risk taking, imagination, sensory experience, perceptivity, and active engagement, a six-theme framework in the Western aesthetic education literature, we summarize five characteristics of Chan teaching and learning that specifically facilitates learners to be actively engaged and connected in their learning and modestly facilitates the learner’s sensory experience and imagination . We argue that Chan’s teaching and learning do not enable learners to take risks or to become overly perceptive. These aesthetic features might make Chinese learners more able learners in a lecture-directed learning environment that is usually associated with ineffective learning in Western teaching and learning discourse. Lack of risk taking in Chan tradition might relate to the lack of creative thinking in China, which still needs more in-depth exploration.