James Mark Shields
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190664008
- eISBN:
- 9780190675523
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190664008.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism, Religion and Society
Against Harmony traces the history of progressive and radical experiments in Japanese Buddhist thought and practice from the mid-Meiji period through the early Shōwa period (1885–1935), when ...
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Against Harmony traces the history of progressive and radical experiments in Japanese Buddhist thought and practice from the mid-Meiji period through the early Shōwa period (1885–1935), when historical events coalesced to eliminate all such experiments. It is a work of both intellectual history and of critical, comparative thought. Perhaps the two best representations of progressive Buddhism during this period were the New Buddhist Fellowship (1899–1915) and the Youth League for Revitalizing Buddhism (1931–1936). Both were nonsectarian, lay movements comprising young men with education in classical Buddhist texts as well as Western literature, philosophy, and religion. Their work effectively collapses commonly held distinctions between religion, philosophy, ethics, politics, and economics. Unlike many others of their day, these “New Buddhists” did not regard the novel forces of modernization as problematic and disruptive, but rather, as an opportunity to explore and expand the possibilities of the dharma. Moreover, these and similar Buddhist and Buddhist-inspired movements experimented with novel, alternative forms of modernity, rooted in variations on what might be called “dharmic materialism.” In short, they did not simply inherit or mimic the dominant Western model(s). For this reason, their work remains of relevance in the early twenty-first century.Less
Against Harmony traces the history of progressive and radical experiments in Japanese Buddhist thought and practice from the mid-Meiji period through the early Shōwa period (1885–1935), when historical events coalesced to eliminate all such experiments. It is a work of both intellectual history and of critical, comparative thought. Perhaps the two best representations of progressive Buddhism during this period were the New Buddhist Fellowship (1899–1915) and the Youth League for Revitalizing Buddhism (1931–1936). Both were nonsectarian, lay movements comprising young men with education in classical Buddhist texts as well as Western literature, philosophy, and religion. Their work effectively collapses commonly held distinctions between religion, philosophy, ethics, politics, and economics. Unlike many others of their day, these “New Buddhists” did not regard the novel forces of modernization as problematic and disruptive, but rather, as an opportunity to explore and expand the possibilities of the dharma. Moreover, these and similar Buddhist and Buddhist-inspired movements experimented with novel, alternative forms of modernity, rooted in variations on what might be called “dharmic materialism.” In short, they did not simply inherit or mimic the dominant Western model(s). For this reason, their work remains of relevance in the early twenty-first century.
Justin Ritzinger
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190491161
- eISBN:
- 9780190491185
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190491161.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
Anarchy in the Pure Land investigates the cult of Maitreya, the future Buddha, promoted by the Chinese Buddhist reform movement spearheaded by Taixu as an avenue through which to consider the ...
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Anarchy in the Pure Land investigates the cult of Maitreya, the future Buddha, promoted by the Chinese Buddhist reform movement spearheaded by Taixu as an avenue through which to consider the formation of alternative modernities. The cult presents an apparent anomaly: It shows precisely the kind of concern for ritual, supernatural beings, and the afterlife that much scholarship contends the reformers rejected in the name of “modernity.” This book shows that rather than a concession to tradition, the reimagining of ideas and practices associated with Maitreya was an important site for formulating a Buddhist vision of modernity. To make sense of this it develops a new perspective on alternative modernities by drawing on Charles Taylor’s notion of moral frameworks, arguing that the cult of Maitreya represents an attempt to articulate a new constellation of values that integrates novel understandings of the good clustered around modern visions of utopia with the central Buddhist value of Buddhahood. Part I traces the roots of this constellation to Taixu’s youthful career as an anarchist. Part II examines its articulation in the “Maitreya School’s” theology and the cult’s development from its inception to World War II. Part III examines its subsequent decline and its contemporary legacy within and beyond orthodox Buddhism.Less
Anarchy in the Pure Land investigates the cult of Maitreya, the future Buddha, promoted by the Chinese Buddhist reform movement spearheaded by Taixu as an avenue through which to consider the formation of alternative modernities. The cult presents an apparent anomaly: It shows precisely the kind of concern for ritual, supernatural beings, and the afterlife that much scholarship contends the reformers rejected in the name of “modernity.” This book shows that rather than a concession to tradition, the reimagining of ideas and practices associated with Maitreya was an important site for formulating a Buddhist vision of modernity. To make sense of this it develops a new perspective on alternative modernities by drawing on Charles Taylor’s notion of moral frameworks, arguing that the cult of Maitreya represents an attempt to articulate a new constellation of values that integrates novel understandings of the good clustered around modern visions of utopia with the central Buddhist value of Buddhahood. Part I traces the roots of this constellation to Taixu’s youthful career as an anarchist. Part II examines its articulation in the “Maitreya School’s” theology and the cult’s development from its inception to World War II. Part III examines its subsequent decline and its contemporary legacy within and beyond orthodox Buddhism.
Justin Thomas McDaniel
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780824865986
- eISBN:
- 9780824873738
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824865986.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
Buddhism, usually described as an austere religion which condemns desire, promotes denial, and idealizes the monastic and contemplative life, actually has a thriving leisure culture. Creative ...
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Buddhism, usually described as an austere religion which condemns desire, promotes denial, and idealizes the monastic and contemplative life, actually has a thriving leisure culture. Creative religious improvisations designed by Buddhists across Asia have worked to build a leisure culture both within and outside of monasteries. The author looks at the growth of Buddhist leisure culture through a study of architects who helped design tourist sites, memorial gardens, monuments, museums, and even amusement parks in Nepal, Singapore, Japan, Korea, Macau, Hong Kong, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. In conversation with theorists of material and visual culture and anthropologists of art, this book argues that these sites show the importance of public, leisure and spectacle culture from a Buddhist cultural perspective. They show that the “secular” and “religious” and the “public” and “private” are in many ways false binaries. Moreover, many of these sites reflect a growing Buddhist ecumenism being built through repetitive affective encounters instead of didactic sermons, institutional campaigns, and sectarian developments. These sites present different Buddhist traditions, images, and aesthetic expressions as united but not uniform, collected but not concise—a gathering not a movement. Finally, despite the creativity of lay and ordained visionaries, the building of these sites often faces problems along the way. Parks, monuments, temples, and museums are complex adaptive systems changed and influenced by visitors, budgets, materials, local and global economic conditions. No matter what the architect intends, buildings develop lives of their own.Less
Buddhism, usually described as an austere religion which condemns desire, promotes denial, and idealizes the monastic and contemplative life, actually has a thriving leisure culture. Creative religious improvisations designed by Buddhists across Asia have worked to build a leisure culture both within and outside of monasteries. The author looks at the growth of Buddhist leisure culture through a study of architects who helped design tourist sites, memorial gardens, monuments, museums, and even amusement parks in Nepal, Singapore, Japan, Korea, Macau, Hong Kong, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. In conversation with theorists of material and visual culture and anthropologists of art, this book argues that these sites show the importance of public, leisure and spectacle culture from a Buddhist cultural perspective. They show that the “secular” and “religious” and the “public” and “private” are in many ways false binaries. Moreover, many of these sites reflect a growing Buddhist ecumenism being built through repetitive affective encounters instead of didactic sermons, institutional campaigns, and sectarian developments. These sites present different Buddhist traditions, images, and aesthetic expressions as united but not uniform, collected but not concise—a gathering not a movement. Finally, despite the creativity of lay and ordained visionaries, the building of these sites often faces problems along the way. Parks, monuments, temples, and museums are complex adaptive systems changed and influenced by visitors, budgets, materials, local and global economic conditions. No matter what the architect intends, buildings develop lives of their own.
Jeffrey Samuels
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824833855
- eISBN:
- 9780824870041
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824833855.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
An idealized view of the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk might be described according to the doctrinal demand for emotional detachment and, ultimately, the cessation of all desire. Yet monks are also ...
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An idealized view of the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk might be described according to the doctrinal demand for emotional detachment and, ultimately, the cessation of all desire. Yet monks are also enjoined to practice compassion, and live with every other human feeling while relating to other monks and the lay community. This book looks at how emotion determines and influences the commitments that laypeople and monastics make to each other and to the Buddhist religion in general. By focusing on “multimoment” histories, it highlights specific junctures in which ideas about recruitment, vocation, patronage, and institution-building are negotiated and refined. The book illustrates how aesthetic responses trigger certain emotions, and how personal and shared emotions, at the local level, shape notions of beauty. It reveals the negotiated character of lay-monastic relations and temple management. In the fields of religion and Buddhist studies there has been a growing recognition of the need to examine affective dimensions of religion. The book breaks new ground in that it answers questions about Buddhist emotions and the constitutive roles they play in social life and religious practice through a close, poignant look at small-scale temple and social networks. The book conveys the manner in which Buddhists describe their own histories, experiences, and encounters as they relate to the formation and continuation of Buddhist monastic culture in contemporary Sri Lanka.Less
An idealized view of the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk might be described according to the doctrinal demand for emotional detachment and, ultimately, the cessation of all desire. Yet monks are also enjoined to practice compassion, and live with every other human feeling while relating to other monks and the lay community. This book looks at how emotion determines and influences the commitments that laypeople and monastics make to each other and to the Buddhist religion in general. By focusing on “multimoment” histories, it highlights specific junctures in which ideas about recruitment, vocation, patronage, and institution-building are negotiated and refined. The book illustrates how aesthetic responses trigger certain emotions, and how personal and shared emotions, at the local level, shape notions of beauty. It reveals the negotiated character of lay-monastic relations and temple management. In the fields of religion and Buddhist studies there has been a growing recognition of the need to examine affective dimensions of religion. The book breaks new ground in that it answers questions about Buddhist emotions and the constitutive roles they play in social life and religious practice through a close, poignant look at small-scale temple and social networks. The book conveys the manner in which Buddhists describe their own histories, experiences, and encounters as they relate to the formation and continuation of Buddhist monastic culture in contemporary Sri Lanka.
Janet Gyatso
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231164962
- eISBN:
- 9780231538329
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231164962.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
This book explores medical thought in Tibet and reveals an otherwise unnoticed intersection of early modern sensibilities and religious values in traditional Tibetan medicine. It looks at how ...
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This book explores medical thought in Tibet and reveals an otherwise unnoticed intersection of early modern sensibilities and religious values in traditional Tibetan medicine. It looks at how Buddhist concepts and values were adapted to medical concerns and highlights important ways in which Buddhism played a role in the development of Asian and global civilization. The book opens with a description of the achievements of Tibetan medical illustration, commentary, and institution building during the period of the Fifth Dalai Lama and his regent, Desi Sangyé Gyatso. It then looks back to the work of earlier thinkers, tracing a strategically astute dialectic between scriptural and empirical authorities on questions of history and the nature of human anatomy. It shows key differences between medicine and Buddhism in attitudes toward gender and sex and the moral character of the physician, who had to serve both the patient's and the practitioner's well-being. It ultimately finds that Tibetan medical scholars absorbed ethical and epistemological categories from Buddhism yet shied away from ideal systems and absolutes, instead embracing the imperfectability of the human condition.Less
This book explores medical thought in Tibet and reveals an otherwise unnoticed intersection of early modern sensibilities and religious values in traditional Tibetan medicine. It looks at how Buddhist concepts and values were adapted to medical concerns and highlights important ways in which Buddhism played a role in the development of Asian and global civilization. The book opens with a description of the achievements of Tibetan medical illustration, commentary, and institution building during the period of the Fifth Dalai Lama and his regent, Desi Sangyé Gyatso. It then looks back to the work of earlier thinkers, tracing a strategically astute dialectic between scriptural and empirical authorities on questions of history and the nature of human anatomy. It shows key differences between medicine and Buddhism in attitudes toward gender and sex and the moral character of the physician, who had to serve both the patient's and the practitioner's well-being. It ultimately finds that Tibetan medical scholars absorbed ethical and epistemological categories from Buddhism yet shied away from ideal systems and absolutes, instead embracing the imperfectability of the human condition.
Erik Braun
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226000800
- eISBN:
- 9780226000947
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226000947.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
This book explores the rise of insight meditation (vipassanā) as a widespread lay movement in Burma during British colonial rule. It does this through a study of one of its key architects, the ...
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This book explores the rise of insight meditation (vipassanā) as a widespread lay movement in Burma during British colonial rule. It does this through a study of one of its key architects, the Burmese monk Ledi Sayadaw (1846-1923). His life and work shows that mass meditation emerged out of the relationship between two spheres of action, the study of Buddhist doctrine and the effort to protect the Buddhist religion. In terms of doctrinal study, Ledi empowered a wide range of people to participate in the longstanding elite practice of in-depth study, focusing particularly on the Buddhist philosophical texts, the Abhidhamma. He tied this study to the second sphere, protective efforts, by arguing that such study empowered a person to safeguard Buddhism. He then presented meditation as another way to insure Buddhism’s safety— not to mention as a means to spiritual attainments— and he standardized and simplified meditation methods for lay people using the Abhidhamma. By allying insight practice in this way to study and protection, he set in train the collectivization of practice and the acceptability of lay control of its teaching, now hallmarks of modern Buddhism across the world. This analysis challenges the common assumption that colonialism forced the Burmese to entirely reconceive their traditions, for it shows that Ledi and other Burmese responded to the pressures of colonialism on pre-colonial terms. Thus, in explaining why mass meditation started in Burma, the book also extends into the pre-colonial past our understanding of sources for a form of Buddhist modernity.Less
This book explores the rise of insight meditation (vipassanā) as a widespread lay movement in Burma during British colonial rule. It does this through a study of one of its key architects, the Burmese monk Ledi Sayadaw (1846-1923). His life and work shows that mass meditation emerged out of the relationship between two spheres of action, the study of Buddhist doctrine and the effort to protect the Buddhist religion. In terms of doctrinal study, Ledi empowered a wide range of people to participate in the longstanding elite practice of in-depth study, focusing particularly on the Buddhist philosophical texts, the Abhidhamma. He tied this study to the second sphere, protective efforts, by arguing that such study empowered a person to safeguard Buddhism. He then presented meditation as another way to insure Buddhism’s safety— not to mention as a means to spiritual attainments— and he standardized and simplified meditation methods for lay people using the Abhidhamma. By allying insight practice in this way to study and protection, he set in train the collectivization of practice and the acceptability of lay control of its teaching, now hallmarks of modern Buddhism across the world. This analysis challenges the common assumption that colonialism forced the Burmese to entirely reconceive their traditions, for it shows that Ledi and other Burmese responded to the pressures of colonialism on pre-colonial terms. Thus, in explaining why mass meditation started in Burma, the book also extends into the pre-colonial past our understanding of sources for a form of Buddhist modernity.
Daniel Boucher
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824828813
- eISBN:
- 9780824869274
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824828813.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
This book delves into the socioreligious milieu of the authors, editors, and propagators of the Rāṣṭrapālapaṛiprcchā-sūtra (Questions of Rāṣṭrapāla), a Buddhist text circulating in India during the ...
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This book delves into the socioreligious milieu of the authors, editors, and propagators of the Rāṣṭrapālapaṛiprcchā-sūtra (Questions of Rāṣṭrapāla), a Buddhist text circulating in India during the first half of the first millennium C.E. The book first reflects upon the problems that plague historians of Mahāyāna Buddhism, whose previous efforts to comprehend the tradition have often ignored the social dynamics that motivated some of the innovations of this new literature. Following that is an analysis of several motifs found in the Indian text and an examination of the value of the earliest Chinese translation for charting the sūtra's evolution. The first part looks at the relationship between the bodily glorification of the Buddha and the ascetic career that produced it within the socioeconomic world of early medieval Buddhist monasticism. Part 2 focuses on the third-century Chinese translation of the sūtra attributed to Dharmarakṣa and traces the changes in the translation to the late tenth century. The significance of this translation, the book explains, is to be found in the ways it differs from all other witnesses. One of the signal contributions of this book is its skill at identifying the traces left by the process and ability to uncover clues about the nature of the source text as well as the world of the principal recipients. The book concludes with an annotated translation of the Rāṣṭrapālapaṛiprcchā-sūtra based on a new reading of its earliest extant Sanskrit manuscript.Less
This book delves into the socioreligious milieu of the authors, editors, and propagators of the Rāṣṭrapālapaṛiprcchā-sūtra (Questions of Rāṣṭrapāla), a Buddhist text circulating in India during the first half of the first millennium C.E. The book first reflects upon the problems that plague historians of Mahāyāna Buddhism, whose previous efforts to comprehend the tradition have often ignored the social dynamics that motivated some of the innovations of this new literature. Following that is an analysis of several motifs found in the Indian text and an examination of the value of the earliest Chinese translation for charting the sūtra's evolution. The first part looks at the relationship between the bodily glorification of the Buddha and the ascetic career that produced it within the socioeconomic world of early medieval Buddhist monasticism. Part 2 focuses on the third-century Chinese translation of the sūtra attributed to Dharmarakṣa and traces the changes in the translation to the late tenth century. The significance of this translation, the book explains, is to be found in the ways it differs from all other witnesses. One of the signal contributions of this book is its skill at identifying the traces left by the process and ability to uncover clues about the nature of the source text as well as the world of the principal recipients. The book concludes with an annotated translation of the Rāṣṭrapālapaṛiprcchā-sūtra based on a new reading of its earliest extant Sanskrit manuscript.
Mark Michael Rowe
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226730134
- eISBN:
- 9780226730165
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226730165.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
Despite popular images of priests seeking enlightenment in snow-covered mountain temples, the central concern of Japanese Buddhism is death. For that reason, Japanese Buddhism's social and economic ...
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Despite popular images of priests seeking enlightenment in snow-covered mountain temples, the central concern of Japanese Buddhism is death. For that reason, Japanese Buddhism's social and economic base has long been in mortuary services—a base now threatened by public debate over the status, treatment, and location of the dead. This book explores the crisis brought on by this debate and investigates what changing burial forms reveal about the ways temple Buddhism is perceived and propagated in contemporary Japan. It offers an account of how religious, political, social, and economic forces in the twentieth century led to the emergence of new funerary practices in Japan and how, as a result, the care of the dead has become the most fundamental challenge to the continued existence of Japanese temple Buddhism. Far from marking the death of Buddhism in Japan, the book argues, funerary Buddhism reveals the tradition at its most vibrant.Less
Despite popular images of priests seeking enlightenment in snow-covered mountain temples, the central concern of Japanese Buddhism is death. For that reason, Japanese Buddhism's social and economic base has long been in mortuary services—a base now threatened by public debate over the status, treatment, and location of the dead. This book explores the crisis brought on by this debate and investigates what changing burial forms reveal about the ways temple Buddhism is perceived and propagated in contemporary Japan. It offers an account of how religious, political, social, and economic forces in the twentieth century led to the emergence of new funerary practices in Japan and how, as a result, the care of the dead has become the most fundamental challenge to the continued existence of Japanese temple Buddhism. Far from marking the death of Buddhism in Japan, the book argues, funerary Buddhism reveals the tradition at its most vibrant.
Dan Arnold
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231145473
- eISBN:
- 9780231518215
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231145473.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
This book looks at first-millennium Indian arguments and contemporary debates on the philosophy of mind and shows that seemingly arcane arguments among first-millennium Indian thinkers can illuminate ...
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This book looks at first-millennium Indian arguments and contemporary debates on the philosophy of mind and shows that seemingly arcane arguments among first-millennium Indian thinkers can illuminate matters still very much at the heart of contemporary philosophy. It explains how pre-modern Buddhists are sometimes characterized as veritable “mind scientists” whose insights anticipated modern research on the brain and mind. It confronts a significant obstacle to popular attempts at harmonizing classical Buddhist and modern scientific thought: the fact that since most Indian Buddhists hold that the mental continuum is uninterrupted by death they disagree with the idea that everything about the mental can be explained in terms of brain events. It also shows that a predominant stream of Indian Buddhist thought, associated with the seventh-century thinker Dharmakīrti, turns out to be vulnerable to arguments that modern philosophers have levelled against physicalism. It explains that these issues center on what modern philosophers have called intentionality—the fact that the mind can be about (or represent or mean) other things. Tracing an account of intentionality through Kant, Wilfrid Sellars, and John McDowell, the book argues that intentionality cannot, in principle, be explained in causal terms. The book shows that despite his concern to refute physicalism, Dharmakīrti's causal explanations of the mental mean that modern arguments from intentionality cut as much against his project as they do against physicalist philosophies of mind.Less
This book looks at first-millennium Indian arguments and contemporary debates on the philosophy of mind and shows that seemingly arcane arguments among first-millennium Indian thinkers can illuminate matters still very much at the heart of contemporary philosophy. It explains how pre-modern Buddhists are sometimes characterized as veritable “mind scientists” whose insights anticipated modern research on the brain and mind. It confronts a significant obstacle to popular attempts at harmonizing classical Buddhist and modern scientific thought: the fact that since most Indian Buddhists hold that the mental continuum is uninterrupted by death they disagree with the idea that everything about the mental can be explained in terms of brain events. It also shows that a predominant stream of Indian Buddhist thought, associated with the seventh-century thinker Dharmakīrti, turns out to be vulnerable to arguments that modern philosophers have levelled against physicalism. It explains that these issues center on what modern philosophers have called intentionality—the fact that the mind can be about (or represent or mean) other things. Tracing an account of intentionality through Kant, Wilfrid Sellars, and John McDowell, the book argues that intentionality cannot, in principle, be explained in causal terms. The book shows that despite his concern to refute physicalism, Dharmakīrti's causal explanations of the mental mean that modern arguments from intentionality cut as much against his project as they do against physicalist philosophies of mind.
Shunryu Suzuki
Mel Weitsman and Michael Wenger (eds)
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520219823
- eISBN:
- 9780520936232
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520219823.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
When Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind was published in 1972, it was enthusiastically embraced by Westerners eager for spiritual insight and knowledge of Zen. The book became the most successful treatise on ...
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When Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind was published in 1972, it was enthusiastically embraced by Westerners eager for spiritual insight and knowledge of Zen. The book became the most successful treatise on Buddhism in English, selling more than one million copies to date. This book is the first follow-up volume to the author's important work. Like Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, it is a collection of lectures that reveal the insight, humor, and intimacy with Zen that made the author such an influential teacher. The Sandokai — a poem by the eighth-century Zen master Sekito Kisen (Ch. Shitou Xiqian) — is the subject of these lectures. Given in 1970 at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, the lectures are an example of a Zen teacher in his prime elucidating a venerated, ancient, and difficult work to his Western students. The poem addresses the question of how the oneness of things and the multiplicity of things coexist (or, as expressed in this book, “things-as-it-is”). Included with the lectures are the students' questions and the author's direct answers to them, along with a meditation instruction. The book provides an example of how a modern master in the Japanese Soto Zen tradition understands this core text of Buddhism today.Less
When Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind was published in 1972, it was enthusiastically embraced by Westerners eager for spiritual insight and knowledge of Zen. The book became the most successful treatise on Buddhism in English, selling more than one million copies to date. This book is the first follow-up volume to the author's important work. Like Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, it is a collection of lectures that reveal the insight, humor, and intimacy with Zen that made the author such an influential teacher. The Sandokai — a poem by the eighth-century Zen master Sekito Kisen (Ch. Shitou Xiqian) — is the subject of these lectures. Given in 1970 at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, the lectures are an example of a Zen teacher in his prime elucidating a venerated, ancient, and difficult work to his Western students. The poem addresses the question of how the oneness of things and the multiplicity of things coexist (or, as expressed in this book, “things-as-it-is”). Included with the lectures are the students' questions and the author's direct answers to them, along with a meditation instruction. The book provides an example of how a modern master in the Japanese Soto Zen tradition understands this core text of Buddhism today.
