Download or read book Shifting Shape Shaping Text written by Steven Heine and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 1999-01-01 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotation Shifting Shape, Shaping Text examines the fox koan in relation to philosophical and institutional issues facing the Ch'an/Zen tradition in both Sung China and medieval and contemporary Japan.
Download or read book Zen Sand written by Victor Sogen Hori and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2003-02-28 with total page 992 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zen Sand is a classic collection of verses aimed at aiding practitioners of kôan meditation to negotiate the difficult relationship between insight and language. As such it represents a major contribution to both Western Zen practice and English-language Zen scholarship. In Japan the traditional Rinzai Zen kôan curriculum includes the use of jakugo, or "capping phrases." Once a monk has successfully replied to a kôan, the Zen master orders the search for a classical verse to express the monk’s insight into the kôan. Special collections of these jakugo were compiled as handbooks to aid in that search. Until now, Zen students in the West, lacking this important resource, have been severely limited in carrying out this practice. Zen Sand combines and translates two standard jakugo handbooks and opens the way for incorporating this important tradition fully into Western Zen practice. For the scholar, Zen Sand provides a detailed description of the jakugo practice and its place in the overall kôan curriculum, as well as a brief history of the Zen phrase book. This volume also contributes to the understanding of East Asian culture in a broader sense.
Download or read book The Zen Canon written by Dale S. Wright and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-03-25 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bodhidharma, its first patriarch, reputedly said that Zen Buddhism represents "a special transmission outside the teaching/Without reliance on words and letters." This saying, along with the often perplexing use of language (and silence) by Zen masters, gave rise to the notion that Zen is a "lived religion," based strictly on non-linguistic practice and lacking a substantial canon of sacred texts. Even those who recognize the importance of Zen texts commonly limit their focus to a few select texts without recognizing the wide variety of Zen literature. This collection of previously unpublished essays argues that Zen actually has a rich and varied literary heritage. Among the most significant textual genres are hagiographic accounts and recorded sayings of individual Zen masters, koan collections and commentaries, and rules for monastic life. During times of political turmoil in China and Japan, these texts were crucial to the survival and success of Zen, and they have for centuries been valued by practitioners as vital expressions of the truth of Zen. This volume offers learned yet accessible studies of some of the most important classical Zen texts, including some that have received little scholarly attention (and many of which are accessible only to specialists). Each essay provides historical, literary, and philosophical commentary on a particular text or genre. Together, they offer a critique of the "de facto canon" that has been created by the limited approach of Western scholarship, and demonstrate that literature is a diverse and essential part of Zen Buddhism.
Download or read book Opening a Mountain written by Steven Heine and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-02-26 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the growing popularity of Zen Buddhism in the West, virtually everyone knows, or thinks they know, what a koan is: a brief and baffling question or statement that cannot be solved by the logical mind and which, after sustained concentration, can lead to sudden enlightenment. But the truth about koans is both simpler--and more complicated--than this. In Opening a Mountain, Steven Heine shows that koans, and the questions we associate with them--such as "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"--are embedded in larger narratives and belong to an ancient Buddhist tradition of "encounter dialogues." These dialogues feature dramatic and often inscrutable contests between masters and disciples, or between masters and an array of natural and supernatural forces: rouge priests, "wild foxes," hermits, wizards, shapeshifters, magical animals, and dangerous women. To establish a new monastery, "to open a mountain," the Zen master had to tame these wild forces in regions most remote from civilization. In these extraordinary encounters, fingers and arms are cut off, pitchers are kicked over, masters appear in and interpret each other's dreams, and seemingly absurd statements are shown to reveal the deepest insights. Heine restores these koans to their original traditions, allowing readers to see both the complex elements of Chinese culture and religion that they reflect and the role they played in Zen's transformation of local superstitions into its own teachings. Offering a fresh approach to one of the most crucial elements of Zen Buddhism, Opening a Mountain is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the full story behind koans and the mysterious worlds they come from.
Download or read book Did D gen Go to China written by Steven Heine and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006-05-25 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dōgen (1200-1253), the founder of the Sōtō Zen sect in Japan, is especially known for introducing to Japanese Buddhism many of the texts and practices that he discovered in China. Heine reconstructs the context of Dōgen's travels to and reflections on China by means of a critical look at traditional sources both by and about Dōgen in light of recent Japanese scholarship. While many studies emphasize the unique features of Dōgen's Japanese influences, this book calls attention to the way Chinese and Japanese elements were fused in Dōgen's religious vision. It reveals many new materials and insights into Dogen's main writings, including the multiple editions of the Shōbōgenzō, and how and when this seminal text was created by Dōgen and was edited and interpreted by his disciples. This book is the culmination of the author's thirty years of research on Dōgen and provides the reader with a comprehensive approach to the master's life works and an understanding of the overall career trajectory of one of the most important figures in the history of Buddhism and Asian religious thought.
Download or read book The Records of Mazu and the Making of Classical Chan Literature written by Mario Poceski and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-08-12 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Records of Mazu and the Making of Classical Chan Literature explores the growth, makeup, and transformation of Chan (Zen) Buddhist literature in late medieval China. The volume analyzes the earliest extant records about the life, teachings, and legacy of Mazu Daoyi (709-788), the famous leader of the Hongzhou School and one of the principal figures in Chan history. While some of the texts covered are well-known and form a central part of classical Chan (or more broadly Buddhist) literature in China, others have been largely ignored, forgotten, or glossed over until recently. Poceski presents a range of primary materials important for the historical study of Chan Buddhism, some translated for the first time into English or other Western language. He surveys the distinctive features and contents of particular types of texts, and analyzes the forces, milieus, and concerns that shaped key processes of textual production during this period. Although his main focus is on written sources associated with a celebrated Chan tradition that developed and rose to prominence during the Tang era (618-907), Poceski also explores the Five Dynasties (907-960) and Song (960-1279) periods, when many of the best-known Chan collections were compiled. Exploring the Chan School's creative adaptation of classical literary forms and experimentation with novel narrative styles, The Records of Mazu and the Making of Classical Chan Literature traces the creation of several distinctive Chan genres that exerted notable influence on the subsequent development of Buddhism in China and the rest of East Asia.
Download or read book Zen Classics written by Steven Heine and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A companion volume to 'The Koan' and 'The Zen Canon' this text concentrates primarily on texts from Korea and Japan that brought the Zen tradition to fruition.
Download or read book Critique Subversion and Chinese Philosophy written by Hans-Georg Moeller and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-11-12 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together a number of case studies, this book shows how from early on Chinese philosophical discourses unfolded through innovation and the subversion of dominant forms of thinking. Narrowing in on the commonplace Chinese motto that “the three teachings” of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism “are joined into one”, as if there had never been any substantial differences between or within these schools of thought, a team of esteemed contributors challenge established views. They explain how the Daoist tradition provided a variety of alternatives to prevailing Confucian master narratives, reveal why the long history of Confucianism is itself full of ambiguities, disputes, and competing ideas and discuss how in Buddhist theory and practice, the subversion of unquestioned beliefs and attitudes has been a prime methodological and therapeutic device. By drawing attention to unorthodox voices and subversion as a method, this exciting collection reveals that for too long the traditional division into “three teachings” has failed to do justice to the diversity and subtlety found in the numerous discourses constituting the history of Chinese philosophy. Critique, Subversion and Chinese Philosophy finally makes such innovative disruptions visible.
Download or read book Zen and the Modern World written by Masao Abe and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2003-08-31 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by one of Japan’s foremost contemporary thinkers and scholars, Zen and the Modern World is the third in a series of essay collections on Zen Buddhism as seen in the context of Western thought. As a leading representative of the Kyoto School, which has sought a critical, comparative linking of Eastern and Western thought, Abe has based his approach on constructive, mutually respectful yet critical intellectual interaction and dialogue with some of the leading figures in the West (including Paul Tillich, Hans Küng, and Eugene Borowitz) as well as dozens of colleagues, students, and disciples. Together with the previous volumes, this work examines and exemplifies some key features of Kyoto School thought. While the essays presented here should be read in light of the socio-political criticism that has since been lodged against the Kyoto School and, more particularly, its founder Nishida Kitarò, most of them were written prior to the recent discussions and focus on issues of comparative philosophy and religious thought outside the contours of the debate. This should not, however, limit their approach to the earlier historical context.
Download or read book Chan Buddhism in Ritual Context written by Bernard Faure and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-09-27 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this volume attempt to place the Chan and Zen tradition in their ritual and cultural contexts, looking at various aspects heretofore largely (and unduly) ignored. In particular, they show the extent to which these traditions, despite their claim to uniqueness, were indebted to larger trends in East Asian Buddhism, such as the cults of icons, relics and the monastic robe. The book emphasises the importance of ritual for a proper understanding of this allegedly anti-ritualistic form of Buddhism. In doing so, it deconstructs the Chan/Zen 'rhetoric of immediacy' and its ideological underpinnings.
Download or read book Poetic Leaps in Zen s Journey of Enlightenment written by Yong Zhi and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2012-08 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the philosophical discussion of Zen spirituality reaches its limit, poetry offers an effective expression of the sublime experiences. From a poetic perspective, enlightenment is understood as poetic leaps in the spiritual journey, which brings people from the habitually or conventionally established world toward new horizons of consciousness. This leap is a breakthrough in the overall consciousness, rather than a progression in contemplative thought. Therefore, it cannot be adequately described through abstract representation, but poetry can metaphorically capture this leap and reveal both the spiritual meaning and the practical wisdom of enlightenment. This book will take you on this fantastic journey of enlightenment.
Download or read book Dogen written by Steven Heine and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2012-02-29 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays explore the life and thought of Zen Master Dōgen (1200-1253), the founder of the Japanese Soto sect. Through both textual and historical analysis, the volume shows Dōgen in context of the Chinese Chan tradition that influenced him and demonstrates the tremendous, lasting impact he had on Buddhist thought and culture in Japan. Special attention is given to the Shobogenzo and several of its fascicles, which express Dōgen's views on such practices and rituals as using supranormal powers (jinzu), reading the sutras (kankin), diligent training in zazen meditation (shikan taza), and the koan realized in everyday life (genjōkōan). It also analyzes the historical significance of this seminal figure: for instance, Dōgen's methods of appropriating or contrasting with Chan sources, as well as how Dōgen was understood and examined in later periods, including modern times.
Download or read book Like Cats and Dogs written by Steven Heine and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Steven Heine offers a compelling examination of the Mu Koan, widely considered to be the single best known and most widely circulated and transmitted koan record of the Zen school of Buddhism.
Download or read book Discerning Buddhas written by Kevin Buckelew and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2024-11-19 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Song-period China (960–1279 CE), masters in the Chan (Japanese Zen) school of Buddhism were presented as sources of religious authority on par with the Buddha, an almost unthinkably lofty status before the rise of Chan. This claim carried great rhetorical power, facilitating Chan’s appeal to Buddhist monastics and powerful patrons alike. But it also raised a challenging question for Chan Buddhists, who insisted that buddhahood properly transcends all worldly marks: By what signs could one recognize a Chan master as a buddha? Discerning Buddhas argues that Chan Buddhists wove together tropes of sovereignty, hospitality, and martial heroism drawn from both Buddhist tradition and China’s cultural heritage to develop a distinctive vision of what it meant for a Chan master to be a buddha in Song-period China. Kevin Buckelew analyzes the ways Chan Buddhists deployed such tropes in ritual, literature, and visual culture in order to stage the comparison of Chan mastery with buddhahood. He examines how they used the concept of buddhahood to work through questions about the ideal Chan master’s authority, agency, and masculinity, in the process rendering buddhahood in terms highly legible to elite Chinese society. Chan Buddhists, Buckelew shows, developed their own “signature” of buddhahood, according to which enlightened Chan masters who truly deserved comparison to the Buddha were supposed to be distinguished from everyone else. By exploring the resulting Chan culture of discernment, which raised fundamental questions about Buddhist authority at a pivotal inflection point in Chinese history, this book offers fresh insight into the place of Buddhism in Chinese society.
Download or read book Imagination without Borders written by Laura Hein and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2020-06-01 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tomiyama Taeko, a Japanese visual artist born in 1921, is changing the way World War II is remembered in Japan, Asia, and the world. Her work deals with complicated moral and emotional issues of empire and war responsibility that cannot be summed up in simple slogans, which makes it compelling for more than just its considerable beauty. Japanese today are still grappling with the effects of World War II, and, largely because of the inconsistent and ambivalent actions of the government, they are widely seen as resistant to accepting responsibility for their nation’s violent actions against others during the decades of colonialism and war. Yet some individuals, such as Tomiyama, have produced nuanced and reflective commentaries on those experiences, and on the difficulty of disentangling herself from the priorities of the nation despite her lifelong political dissent. Tomiyama’s sophisticated visual commentary on Japan’s history—and on the global history in which Asia is embedded—provides a compelling guide through the difficult terrain of modern historical remembrance, in a distinctively Japanese voice.
Download or read book A Buddhist Theory of Semiotics written by Fabio Rambelli and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-05-16 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the first attempts ever to present in a systematic way a non-western semiotic system. This book looks at Japanese esoteric Buddhism and is based around original texts, informed by explicit and rigorous semiotic categories. It is a unique introduction to important aspects of the thought and rituals of the Japanese Shingon tradition. Semiotic concerns are deeply ingrained in the Buddhist intellectual and religious discourse, beginning with the idea that the world is not what it appears to be, which calls for a more accurate understanding of the self and reality. This in turn results in sustained discussions on the status of language and representations, and on the possibility and methods to know reality beyond delusion; such peculiar knowledge is explicitly defined as enlightenment. Thus, for Buddhism, semiotics is directly relevant to salvation; this is a key point that is often ignored even by Buddhologists. This book discusses in depth the main elements of Buddhist semiotics as based primarily on original Japanese pre-modern sources. It is a crucial publication in the fields of semiotics and religious studies.
Download or read book Dogen s Extensive Record written by Eihei Dogen and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-03-16 with total page 814 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eihei Dogen, the 13th-century Zen master who founded the Japanese Soto School of Zen, is renowned as one of the world's most remarkable religious thinkers. As Shakespeare did with English, Dogen utterly transformed the language of Zen, using it in novel and extraordinarily beautiful ways to point to everything important in religious life. "Dogen's Extensive Record" is the first-ever complete and scholarly translation of this monumental work into English. This edition contains extensive and detailed research and annotation by scholar, translator, and Zen teacher Taigen Dan Leighton, as well as forewords by the 18th-century poet-monk Ryokan and Tenshin Reb Anderson, former abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center -- plus introductory essays from Dogen scholar Steven Heine and the prominent American Zen master John Daido Loori.
