Master Hongyi Looks Back: A Modern Man Becomes a Monk in Twentieth-Century China

Abstract The story that I have to tell concerns the quiet dramas of one man’s life. This particular man was born in 1880, in the waning decades of the Qing dynasty, and he came of age as tremendous forces of change swept across China. Li Shutong—a stunningly talented and influential artist, writer, musician, actor, and educator—became famous in China as a “modern man,” but in 1918 at the height of this fame he altered his course to become a Buddhist monk, renamed Hongyi.1 By the time of his death in 1942, Chinese Buddhists considered Hongyi a towering figure in their modern history (Wg. 4.1). Among Buddhists, he was well known for his profound scholarship on Vinaya (monastic rules), but he was honored most especially for the depth of his religious practice. His artistic talents found particular expression in a unique style of brush writing, developed in his mature years, that ever since has been identified as quintessentially “Buddhist.” The center of my narrative focuses on Hongyi’s recollections of the pivotal years at midlife when he decided to “leave home” (become a monk). Since this chapter looks at his recollections, its subject also is self-representation reflections on one man’s experiences and the ways that he chose to express them. Hongyi’s story is neither typical nor representative. He was an extraordinary person in many ways, which is why memories of him linger sixty years after his death. Indeed, he remains well known in China far beyond Buddhist circles as an enigmatic and romantic Wgure of the near past.