This dissertation analyzes a wealth of previously overlooked epistolary sources to shed light on the formation of sixteenth-century Buddhist culture, with special attention given to Buddhist practices cultivated by members of the official classes during the Wanli-period (1573--1620) of the Ming dynasty (1373--1644). The network of elite scholars, officials, and monks that I have reconstructed maintained a lively, decades-long debate about techniques for cultivation of the mind. Some advocated the following of basic moral precept practice to achieve rebirth in the Pure Land of Amitabha Buddha. Others held fast to the cultivation of Chan techniques in the hope of a sudden experience of awakening. What were the goals of self-cultivation? Why should one cultivate? How should one cultivate? These were the most important questions. Other questions, such as how to organize a releasing-life society or what meditative posture one ought to assume, or even what texts to read, were determined, in part, by the answers to these larger questions.; It is the story of debates about these issues, the kinds of choices these men had before them, and the decisions they made that forms the basis of this study. Each chapter lays out a different aspect of either the debate about cultivation or the types of methods this network practiced. The examination elites in this study were part of a loose network of many smaller and larger groups of varying degrees of formal association, who had in common their connection either to the monk Zhuhong (1535--1615) or the literary reformer Yuan Hongdao (1568--1610). Yuan Hongdao and his two brothers, Zongdao (1560--1600) and Zhongdao (1570--1624), Tao Wangling (1562--1609), Huang Hui (1554--1612), and Zhou Rudeng (1547--1629) are some of the more prominent members of the network.
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