Zen - Chan

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Topic: Zen - Chan

Books

Book
Buddha Nature and Animality
Buddha Nature and Animality is about peaceful living. In discussions about the relation between humans and their animal relatives, a central theme is that Buddhism represents the most viable philosophical/religious alternative to the malaise surrounding us when we confront ecological problems. This recognition points to the notion of compassion. Karuna is given expression as an alternative to stewardship since stewardship too falls into the dualistic trap of privileging the human. Authors seek beyond the limits imposed by discourses of ethics and assume a more radical approach to seek the roots of the perspectives that allow the conceptual space for the problematic dialogues in the first place. Rather than viewing animals as distinct beings sharing our environs, authors attempt to give the animal soul back to spirituality. They argue for the naturally enlightened spontaneity arising in animal nature and that animal nature is Buddha-nature. This "animal-buddha" nature is fundamental to understanding Buddhism as a 21st century philosophy for living and dying. (Source: Jain Publishing Company)
Jones, David., ed. Buddha Nature and Animality. Fremont, CA: Jain Publishing Company, 2007.
Book
Buddhist Faith and Sudden Enlightenment
Buddhist Faith and Sudden Enlightenment explains how sudden enlightenment occurs through the awakening of patriarchal faith. This is the non-dual affirmation that one is already Buddha as opposed to the doctrinal, dualistic faith that one can become Buddha. The essence of the presentation is that patriarchal faith forms the basis for sudden enlightenment in Zen meditation. For the practitioner, this book establishes the Zen method of mind-cultivation on a higher level by introducing a new understanding of awakening right faith.

Included is extensive material on the history of faith in Buddhism with the main attention devoted to Ch'an (Zen) and Hua-yen. There are also substantial discussions of Buddhist antecedents to these schools and of the Pure Land School.

This is the first book in English to examine the central role of faith in Mahayana Buddhism. The author's approach develops from his personal experiences as a son (Zen) monk of the Chogye order, which was heavily influenced by the integration of meditation and scriptural study established by Chinul. (Source: Suny Press)
Park, Sung Bae. Buddhist Faith and Sudden Enlightenment. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983.
Book
Critical Buddhism
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the relative calm world of Japanese Buddhist scholarship was thrown into chaos with the publication of several works by Buddhist scholars Hakamaya Noriaki and Matsumoto Shiro, dedicated to the promotion of something they called Critical Buddhism (hihan bukkyo). In their quest to re-establish a "true" - rational, ethical and humanist - form of East Asian Buddhism, the Critical Buddhists undertook a radical deconstruction of historical and contemporary East Asian Buddhism, particularly Zen. While their controversial work has received some attention in English-language scholarship, this is the first book-length treatment of Critical Buddhism as both a philosophical and religious movement, where the lines between scholarship and practice blur. Providing a critical and constructive analysis of Critical Buddhism, particularly the epistemological categories of critica and topica, this book examines contemporary theories of knowledge and ethics in order to situate Critical Buddhism within modern Japanese and Buddhist thought as well as in relation to current trends in contemporary Western thought. (Source: Taylor & Francis)
Shields, James M. Critical Buddhism: Engaging with Modern Japanese Buddhist Thought. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011. https://archive.org/details/criticalbuddhismengagingwithmodernjapanesebuddhistthoughtjamesmarkshields_202003_771_Y/mode/2up.
Book
Currents and Countercurrents
Soon after the inception of Buddhism in the sixth or fifth century B.C.E., the Buddha ordered his small band of monks to wander forth for the welfare and weal of the many, a command that initiated one of the greatest missionary movements in world religious history. But this account of a monolithic missionary movement spreading outward from the Buddhist homeland of India across the Asian continent is just one part of the story. The case of East Asian Buddhism suggests another tale, one in which the dominant eastward current of diffusion creates important eddies, or countercurrents, of influence that redound back toward the center. These countercurrents have had significant, even profound, impact on neighboring traditions.
In East Asia perhaps the most important countercurrent of influence came from Korea, the focus of this volume. Chapters examine the role played by the Paekche kingdom in introducing Buddhist material culture (especially monastic architecture) to Japan and the impact of Korean scholiasts on the creation of several distinctive features that eventually came to characterize Japanese Pure Land Buddhism. The lives and intellectual importance of the monks Sungnang (fl. ca. 490) and Wonch’uk (613–696) are reassessed, bringing to light their role in the development of early intellectual schools within Chinese Buddhism. Later chapters discuss the influential teachings of the semi-legendary master Musang (684–762), the patriarch of two of the earliest schools of Ch’an; the work of a dozen or so Korean monks active in the Chinese T’ient’ai tradition; and the Huiyin monastery. Source: University of Hawai'i Press
Buswell, Robert E., ed. Currents and Countercurrents: Korean Influences on the East Asian Buddhist Traditions. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2005.
Book
Daijō kishinron no kenkyū
Anthology of articles covering such topics as the early history of the Awakening of Faith, the influence of its doctrine of original enlightenment on early Chan, Fazang's commentary, the rhetoric of the text, and the concept of the "one vehicle" (ekayāna). (Source Accessed July 3, 2020)
Inoue, Katsuhito, ed. Daijō kishinron no kenkyū. Suita-shi, Osaka, Japan: Kansai Daigaku Shuppanbu, 2000.
Book
Early Ch'an in China and Tibet
Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism was popularized in the West by writers such as D.T. Suzuki and Alan Watts as a kind of 'romantic abstraction' outside of history. The papers in this volume, originally presented at a unique conference sponsored by U.C. Berkeley and the San Francisco Zen Center, go a long way

towards revealing the complex historical development of Ch'an theory and practice both in China and Tibet.
      The papers on China reveal Ch' an not as a single line of transmission from Bodhidharma, but as a complex of contending and even hostile factions. Furthermore, the view which sees Ch'an as the sinicization of Buddhism through Taoism is questioned through an examination of the Taoism that was actually prevalent during the establishment of Ch' an in China.
      The papers on Tibet take us to the heart of the controversies surrounding the origins of Buddhism in that country, based on exciting research into the Tunhuang materials, the indigenous rDzogs-chen system, and the 'Sudden vs. Gradual Enlightenment' controversy.
      Of particular note in this volume is the inclusion of several translations of papers by noted Japanese scholars who have led the way in this type of research,

made available to the Western reader for the first time. (Source: inside jacket)
Lai, Whalen, and Lewis R. Lancaster, eds. Early Ch’an in China and Tibet. Berkeley Buddhist Studies Series 5. Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 1983.
Book
Impermanence Is Buddha-Nature: Dōgen's Understanding of Temporality
Dōgen Zenji was a Japanese Zen Buddhist teacher born in Kyōto, and the founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan after travelling to China and training under the Chinese Caodong lineage there. Dōgen is known for his extensive writing including the Treasury of the Eye of the True Dharma or Shōbōgenzō, a collection of ninety-five fascicles concerning Buddhist practice and enlightenment.


The primary concept underlying Dōgen's Zen practice is “oneness of practice-enlightenment”. In fact, this concept is considered so fundamental to Dōgen's variety of Zen—and, consequently, to the Sōtō school as a whole—that it formed the basis for the work Shushō-gi, which was compiled in 1890 by Takiya Takushō of Eihei-ji and Azegami Baisen of Sōji-ji as an introductory and prescriptive abstract of Dōgen's massive work, the Shōbōgenzō (“Treasury of the Eye of the True Dharma”).

Dōgen is a profoundly original and difficult 13th century Buddhist thinker whose works have begun attracting increasing attention in the West. Admittedly difficult for even the most advanced and sophisticated scholar of Eastern thought, he is bound, initially, to present an almost insurmountable barrier to the Western mind. Yet the task of penetrating that barrier must be undertaken and, in fact, is being carried out by many gifted scholars toiling in the Dōgen vineyard. (Source: University of Hawai'i Press)
Stambaugh, Joan. Impermanence Is Buddha-Nature: Dōgen's Understanding of Temporality. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1990.
Book
No River to Cross
It is often said that enlightenment means “crossing over to the other shore,” that far-off place where we can at last be free from suffering. Likewise, it is said that Buddhist teachings are the raft that takes us there.

In this sparkling collection from one of the most vital teachers of modern Korean Buddhism, Zen Master Daehaeng shows us that there is no raft to find and, truly, no river to cross. She extends her hand to the Western reader, beckoning each of us into the unfailing wisdom accessible right now, the enlightenment that is always, already, right here.

A Zen (or seon, as Korean Zen is called) master with impeccable credentials, Daehaeng has developed a refreshing approach; No River to Cross is surprisingly personal. It’s disarmingly simple, yet remarkably profound, pointing us again and again to our foundation, our “True Nature”—the perfection of things just as they are. (Source: Wisdom Publications)
Daehaeng Sunim. No River to Cross: Trusting the Enlightenment That's Always Right Here. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2007.
Book
Not Always So
Not Always So is based on Shunryu Suzuki's lectures and is framed in his own inimitable, allusive, paradoxical style, rich with unexpected and off–centre insights. Suzuki knew he was dying at the time of the lectures, which gives his thoughts an urgency and focus even sharper than in the earlier book. In Not Always So Suzuki once again voices Zen in everyday language with the vigour, sensitivity, and buoyancy of a true friend. Here is support and nourishment. Here is a mother and father lending a hand, but letting you find your own way. Here is guidance which empowers your freedom (or way–seeking mind), rather than pinning you down to directions and techniques. Here is teaching which encourages you to touch and know your true heart and to express yourself fully, teaching which is not teaching from outside, but a voice arising in your own being. (Source Accessed Nov 25, 2020)
Suzuki, Shunryu. Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen. Edited by Edward Espe Brown. San Francisco: Quill, 2003. https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/Suzuki-Not-Always-So.pdf.
Book
Presenting Japanese Buddhism to the West
Japanese Buddhism was introduced to a wide Western audience when a delegation of Buddhist priests attended the World's Parliament of Religions, part of the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In describing and analyzing this event, Judith Snodgrass challenges the predominant view of Orientalism as a one-way process by which Asian cultures are understood strictly through Western ideas. Restoring agency to the Buddhists themselves, she shows how they helped reformulate Buddhism as a modern world religion with specific appeal to the West while simultaneously reclaiming authority for the tradition within a rapidly changing Japan.
      Snodgrass explains how the Buddhism presented in Chicago was shaped by the institutional, social, and political imperatives of the Meiji Buddhist revival movement in Japan and was further determined by the Parliament itself, which, despite its rhetoric of fostering universal brotherhood and international goodwill, was thoroughly permeated with confidence in the superiority of American Protestantism. Additionally, in the context of Japan's intensive diplomatic campaign to renegotiate its treaties with Western nations, the nature of Japanese religion was not simply a religious issue, Snodgrass argues, but an integral part of Japan's bid for acceptance by the international community. (Source: University of North Carolina Press)
Snodgrass, Judith. Presenting Japanese Buddhism to the West: Orientalism, Occidentalism, and the Columbian Exposition. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. https://archive.org/details/presentingjapanesebuddhismtowestorientalismoccidentalismcolumbianexpositionjudithsnodgrass_743_i/mode/2up.
Book
Pruning the Bodhi Tree
A collection of essays on the "critical Buddhism" (hihan bukkyō) movement started by Hakamaya Noriaki and Matsumoto Shirō that swept Japanese academia from the late 1980's onward.
Hubbard, Jamie, and Paul L. Swanson, eds. Pruning the Bodhi Tree: The Storm Over Critical Buddhism. Nanzan Library of Asian Religion and Culture. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997.
Book
Silent Illumination
Our natural awakening—or buddha-nature—is inherent within all of us and waiting to be realized. Buddha-nature has the qualities of both silence and illumination, and by working with silent illumination meditation you can find your own awakening. Distinguished Chan Buddhist teacher Guo Gu introduces you to the significance and methods of this practice through in-depth explanations and guided instructions. To help establish a foundation for realizing silent illumination, he has translated twenty-five teachings from the influential master Hongzhi Zhengjue into English, accompanied by his personal commentary. This book will be an indispensable resource for meditators interested in beginning or deepening their silent illumination practice. (Source: Shambhala Publications)
Gu, Guo. Silent Illumination: A Chan Buddhist Path to Natural Awakening. Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications, 2021.
Book
Studies in Ch’an and Hua-yen
In the nearly four decades that have passed since the end of World War II, the study of East Asian Buddhism has made rapid, manifold, and significant advances in the West. One general effect of its remarkable progress, apart from the enormous increment it has produced in the sheer quantity of knowledge, has been to draw the study of Buddhist thought and history away from the obscure periphery of scholarship on China, Japan, and Korea into the very center of those fields of academic focus. Students of East Asian history and culture, therefore, are no longer so inclined as they once were to follow traditional prejudices—e.g., the residual biases of Confucianism or of the European Enlightenment—in regarding Buddhism as an entirely arcane subject beyond the pale of, say, sober Sinology or main-stream Japanology. Rather, it is now widely recognized that Buddhism is a subject worthy of study not only in its own right, as a subtle and sophisticated system of religious belief and practice, but also because of the variety of very consequential roles it has played in the formation of East Asian society and civilization. Conversely, Buddhist Studies itself has begun to outgrow that part of its previous isolation which was self imposed. Buddhist scholars, that is to say, are now less inclined than they once were to abstract their subject from its various, complex, and ever-changing cultural contexts. They are as much interested in exploring the web of its relationships with other components of East Asian civilization as they are in tracing the intricacies of its philology and the internal patterns of its thought.
      The factors contributing to this change in the nature and place of East Asian Buddhist Studies are too numerous to list in their entirety, and it is likely that not all of them are yet fully understood. No doubt influential are the new definitions of Religious and Intellectual History that have been entertained throughout the academy. New designs of advanced graduate training in the relevant disciplines and areas have surely also had their effects. However, two rather more specific factors deserve special notice, particularly in view of their relevance to the work here at hand. The first of these that needs to be appreciated is the extent to which western scholars of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Buddhism have put themselves wisely in debt to Japanese scholarship. The Japanese have led the field of East Asian Buddhist Studies for several generations, and in recent decades they have succeeded in adding to the breadth and depth of their traditional learning in the subject a measure of critical sophistication in Philology and History that has set the standard which all others in the field must match. No

serious work on East Asian Buddhism is now being done in Europe or America that has not been deliberately informed by the Japanese model. The other particular factor to be noted is the importance of the discovery and exploitation of previously unknown or very little known primary sources of information. Foremost among these, of course, are the manuscripts and xylographs of the now well known Tun-huang trove. Of a significance for the study of East Asian Buddhism comparable to the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for the early history of Judaism and Christianity, these texts have had especially revolutionary effects upon our knowledge of the origins and early phases of Ch'an (Zen). Again, it has been Japanese scholars who have taken the lead in editing, analyzing, and interpreting the hundreds of these texts in Chinese and Tibetan that bear on the early history of Ch'an, but now French scholars are also making very important contributions, and for some years yet to come the study of early Ch'an will continue to be one of the most exciting frontiers of advancement in East Asian Buddhist Studies wherever conducted. Also to be considered are the many other primary sources, apart from the Tun-huang materials, that have come to light in the past forty years or so and are now attracting scholarly attention. One thinks particularly of texts discovered in Korean monastic libraries or in hitherto little explored Japanese collections. These too have helped stimulate the growth and redefinition of East Asian Buddhist Studies that is currently underway.
      It is the belief of the editors of the present volume that the essays which comprise it exemplify the trends sketched above. They either broach new topics or address older topics from new theoretical and methodological perspectives, and they are based in large measure on primary literature—much of it from the Tun-huang collection—which has been only recently discovered or which has previously eluded extended investigation. Moreover, all five of the essays are written by scholars who owe much to their Japanese teachers and who try to emulate those teachers in philological and historiographical rigor.
      Ch'an and Hua-yen (Kegon) Buddhism have been chosen as the dual focus of this group of studies essentially for three reasons: First, because they are major traditions of East Asian Buddhist thought and practice which were roughly contemporary with each other in their origins and which influenced each other in important ways during the early centuries of their development. Second, because they both loom large as examples of the East Asian transformation of Buddhism, i.e., of the remarkable process by which that originally Indian tradition took on the shape and substance first of a Chinese, and later of a Korean and a Japanese, religion; as such they serve as valuable

case studies in one of world history's most fascinating examples of religious change. Third, because they happen to be the subjects of some of the best work now being done, here and abroad, in the field of Buddhist Studies and so can serve well to index the changes underway in that field
      The articles by Broughton, Gómez and McRae deal with early Ch'an and are based on texts in Chinese and Tibetan that were found among the Tun-huang manuscripts. All three shed substantively new light on the rise of what was to become one of the most crucial East Asian developments of Buddhism. The articles by Gregory and Gimello treat somewhat of Ch'an but mostly of Hua-yen—the latter especially in its "classical" phase during the eighth and ninth centuries, although they give some attention also to its later influences in other traditions of East Asian Buddhism. The Hua-yen articles are based primarily on materials which have long been available in standard editions of the Chinese Buddhist canon but which have been studied hardly at all in the West and only in the most preliminary way even in Japan. It is hoped that they will show, among other things, that the Hua-yen tradition is something more than its conventional reputation as a purely theoretical and rather cerebral form of Buddhism might lead one to believe.
      Four of the five articles are much revised and expanded versions of papers delivered in 1980 at a Conference on East Asian Buddhism held in Los Angeles under the sponsorship of the Kuroda Institute for the Study of Buddhism and Human Values. The fifth, that by Luis Gómez, was especially solicited for the volume well after the conference. All of the articles were designed to comprise a collection that would serve not to introduce, survey, or sum up a field of study but to communicate new and ongoing advanced research. This will be the purpose also of the series, Studies in East Asian Buddhism, which this volume inaugurates. (Gimello, preface, 1983)
Gimello, Robert M., and Peter N. Gregory, eds. Studies in Ch’an and Hua-yen. Kuroda Studies in East Asian Buddhism 1. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1983.
Book
Sudden and Gradual
This volume examines the historical basis of the debate over sudden versus gradual approaches to enlightenment in Chinese Buddhism, seeing it as part of a recurrent polarity in Chinese history and thought. Sudden and Gradual includes essays by Luis O. Gómez on the philosophical implications of the debate in China and Tibet, Whalen Lai on Taodheng's theory of sudden enlightenment, Neal Donner on Chih-i's system of T'ien-t'ai, John R. McRae on Shen-Hui's sudden enlightenment and its precedents in Northern Ch'an, and Peter N. Gregory on Tsung-mi's theory of sudden enlightenment. (Source: Motilal Banarsidass)
Gregory, Peter N., ed. Sudden and Gradual: Approaches to Enlightenment in Chinese Thought. Buddhist Tradition Series 16. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1991. First published 1987 by University of Hawai'i Press. https://terebess.hu/zen/Sudden-and-Gradual-Enlightenment.pdf.
Book
Sun-Face Buddha
A translation of the primary materials on the life and teachings of Ma-Tsu (709-788), the successor to the great sixth patriarch and the greatest Ch'an master in history, Hui-Neng (638-713). The book should be invaluable to all who wish to study the development of the Zen thought and philosophy over the course of history. (Source: Jain Publishing)
Chien, Cheng (Mario Poceski), trans. Sun-Face Buddha: The Teachings of Ma-tsu and the Hung-chou School of Ch'an. Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 1993. https://terebess.hu/zen/SunFace.pdf.
Book
The Buddha's Dream of Liberation: Freedom, Emptiness, and Awakened Nature
In clear language, James William Coleman guides us through the ancient sutras that preserve the Buddha’s message, illuminating their meaning for today’s world and tying the Buddha’s wisdom together for us. The book concludes with chapters from two great teachers, Reb Anderson from the Zen tradition and Lama Palden from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, on how to use meditation to bring the Buddha’s wisdom into our daily lives. (Source: Wisdom Publications)
Coleman, James William. The Buddha's Dream of Liberation: Freedom, Emptiness, and Awakened Nature. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2017.
Book
The Denkōroku
Attributed to the thirteenth-century Zen Master Keizan (1268-1325), the Denkoroku tells of the enlightenment of the fifty-three masters, beginning with Shakyamuni Buddha and concluding with the twelfth-century Zen Master Ejyo, who was Dogen's dharma heir. Keizan explores how the personal koan (spiritual question) of the various disciples was resolved so that they fully realized their inherent enlightenment. By use of his kaleidoscopic view of Buddhist teachings, Keizan reveals the myriad ways in which the Unborn has been experienced and how these experiences relate to one's daily practice. The translator, Rev. Hubert Nearman, is a senior disciple of the late Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett, first Abbess of Shasta Abbey in California, and founder of the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives. Prior to becoming a monk, he was a scholar and translator of medieval Japanese texts and was a recipient of a grant for his translation work from the National Endowment for the Humanities. (Source Accessed June 28, 2021)
Nearman, Rev. Hubert, trans. The Denkōroku: Or The Record of the Transmission of the Light. 2nd ed. By Zen Master Keizan Jōkin. Mt. Shasta, CA: Shasta Abbey Press, 2001. https://shastaabbey.org/publications/.
Book
The Formation of Ch'an Ideology in China and Korea
This book contains an extensive study and a translation of the Vajrasamādhi Sūtra and makes a convincing argument to rethink the "national lines of argument" that had previously dominated discussions of East Asian Buddhist traditions. Buswell shows how Chan developed in multiple communities; it was not a Chinese phenomenon that was then exported to Korea and Japan. He also shows how the scripture is firmly in the Chinese Yogācāra tradition of Paramārtha, containing an extensive discussion of "immaculate consciousness" (amalavijñāna), the ninth consciousness which unites saṃsāra and nirvāṇa in a "single taste." Buswell draws on Japanese scholarship, such as that by Mozuno Kōgen, who first concluded that the sūtra was an apocryphon.
Buswell, Robert E., Jr. The Formation of Ch'an Ideology in China and Korea: The Vajrasamādhi-Sūtra, A Buddhist Apocryphon. Princeton Library of Asian Translations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989.
Book
The Heart of Dōgen's Shōbōgenzō
The Heart of Dogen's Shobogenzo provides exhaustively annotated translations of the difficult core essays of Shobogenzo, the masterwork of Japanese Zen master Dogen Kigen, the founder of Soto Zen. This book is centered around those essays that generations have regarded as containing the essence of Dogen's teaching. These translations, revised from those that first appeared in the 1970s, clarify and enrich the understanding of Dogen's religious thought and his basic ideas about Zen practice and doctrine. Dogen's uncommon intellectual gifts, combined with a profound religious attainment and an extraordinary ability to articulate it, make Shobogenzo unique even in the vast literature the Zen school has produced over the centuries, securing it a special place in the history of world religious literature. (Source: SUNY Press)
Waddell, Norman, and Masao Abe, trans. The Heart of Dōgen's Shōbōgenzō. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. https://terebess.hu/zen/dogen/The-Heart-of-Dogens-Shobogenzo.pdf.
Book
The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch (McRae)
Taishō 2008

Volume 48

The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch consists of a record of the teachings of Hui-neng, the Sixth Patriarch of the Chan School in China, recorded by his disciple Fahai, and is known by several abbreviated titles such as Platform Sūtra or Platform Sūtra of the Dharma Treasure. It proclaims the independence of the Southern School of Chan from the Northern School on such subjects as "sudden enlightenment" (Ch. dun-wu) and the external expression of one's real nature (Ch. jian-xing).

Source

Ch. Liuzu dashi fabao tan jing (六祖大師法寶壇經), Compiled in the Chinese by Zong-bao, as recorded by Fa-hai et al. 1 fascicle. (Source: BDK America)
McRae, John R., trans. The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch. Translated from the Chinese of Zongbao (Taishō Volume 48, Number 2008). BDK English Tripiṭaka Series, vol. 73, no. 2. Berkeley, CA: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 2000. https://bdkamerica.org/product/the-platform-sutra-of-the-sixth-patriarch/.
Book
The Record of Transmission of Light
[T]he work [Denkōroku] [was] written by Keizan Jokin during the late 13th and early 14th centuries. Keizan began this book with Shakyamuni Buddha as the leading chapter. Denkoroku is a collection of stories about 53 Patriarchs from India, China and Japan and illustrates the enlightenment of each Patriarch – known as the Zen Enlightenment, or Transmission of Light.

Each chapter is started with the Leading Case (本則, Honsoku), Background (機縁, Kien), Dharma Discourse (提拮, Nentei), and Verse (古頌, Juko). When Keizan mentioned each Patriarch he began with the most important point. First, the key tenet as Leading Case (Honsoku). Next, he indicated the background (Kien) of each Patriarch. Some backgrounds are minutely detailed while others are brief and sparse. After a discussion about background, Keizan presented a lengthy interpretation about the Patriarch as Dharma Discourse (Nentei). He followed with his own Verse (Juko) as a short conclusion.

Short stories of each Patriarch are given in this manner so it is easy to follow the accomplishment of each Patriarchs life. Honsoku as Leading Case is the area which indicates the Enlightenment and level of transmission of the Patriarch, while Kien as Background describes the process by which the Patriarch is enabled to practice the transmission. Nentei as Dharma Discourse clarifies the Enlightenment of the Patriarch. Here Keizan teaches the students various interpretations of the Dharma. Finally, Juko (Verse) expresses the spirit of the chapter. Though not necessarily connected with the surface meaning of the chapter, it does express the essence and the conclusion. By making use of the Leading case, background, and dharma discourse, Keizan demonstrates the spiritual tenets which lead to the actual stage of being a Patriarch. In other words, it portrays the Way of Enlightenment. (Nishiyama, introduction, 3–4)
Nishiyama, Kosen, trans. The Record of Transmission of Light: Denkōroku. By Zen Master Keizan Jokin. Tokyo: Japan Publication, 1994.
Book
The Record of Transmitting the Light
The Record of Transmitting the Light traces the inheritance of the Buddha's enlightenment through successive Buddhist masters. Written by a seminal figure in the Japanese Zen tradition, its significance as an historical and religious document is unquestionable. And ultimately, The Record of Transmitting the Light serves as a testament to our own capacity to awaken to a life of freedom, wisdom, and compassion. Readers of Zen will also find the introduction and translation by Francis Dojun Cook, the scholar whose insights brought Zen Master Dogen to life in How to Raise an Ox, of great value. (Source: Wisdom Publications)
Cook, Francis Dojun, trans. The Record of Transmitting the Light: Zen Master Keizan's Denkoroku. 1st Wisdom ed. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003.
Book
The Rhetoric of Immediacy
Through a highly sensitive exploration of key concepts and metaphors, Bernard Faure guides Western readers in appreciating some of the more elusive aspects of the Chinese tradition of Chan Buddhism and its outgrowth, Japanese Zen. He focuses on Chan’s insistence on “immediacy” — its denial of all traditional mediations, including scripture, ritual, good works — and yet shows how these mediations have always been present in Chan. Given this apparent duplicity in its discourse, Faure reveals how Chan structures its practice and doctrine on such mental paradigms as mediacy/immediacy, sudden/gradual, and center/margins. (Source: Princeton University Press)
Faure, Bernard. The Rhetoric of Immediacy: A Cultural Critique of Chan/Zen Buddhism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991.
Book
The Spirit of Zen
Leading Buddhist scholar Sam van Schaik explores the history and essence of Zen, based on a new translation of one of the earliest surviving collections of teachings by Zen masters. These teachings, titled The Masters and Students of the Lanka, were discovered in a sealed cave on the old Silk Road, in modern Gansu, China, in the early twentieth century. All more than a thousand years old, the manuscripts have sometimes been called the Buddhist Dead Sea Scrolls, and their translation has opened a new window onto the history of Buddhism. Both accessible and illuminating, this book explores the continuities between the ways in which Zen was practiced in ancient times, and how it is practiced today in East Asian countries such as Japan, China, Korea, and Vietnam, as well as in the emerging Western Zen tradition. (Source: Yale University Press)
Schaik, Sam van. The Spirit of Zen. The Sacred Literature Series. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018.
Book
Three Contemplations toward Buddha Nature
This book presents the three most renowned genres of contemplation in Mahayana Ch’an Buddhism. They are: Kong-an, Hua-to, and the Seven Enquiries about the Mind.

As for Kong-an, the subject matter employed here are all concerning Master Bodhidharma, the first Patriarch of Chinese Ch’an Buddhism and the 28th Patriarch of in India. These three Kong-ans are:

1. The Mind is Nowhere to be found
2. The Patriarch’s Quatrain for advanced practice
3. Bodhidharma’s Skin, Flesh, Bones, and Marrow

After reading these, you would have a pretty clear picture about Kong-an and how to make contemplation on it, as well as about the over-all quintessence of fountainhead of Ch’an Buddhism.

The second renowned genre of contemplation in Ch’an Buddhism is Hua-to. Hua-to is, as it were, a diminutive of Kong-an. Or to put it this way, Kong-an is a novel, a long story, while Hua-to is a novelette, a short story. But both of them are stories. By the same token, the Kong-an is a long contemplative material, containing a story with a complete plot––the beginning, the middle, and the denouement (ending)––for its body. Whereas the Hua-to would not have a plot; it consists only of a sentence, or a phrase. Therefore, in comparison with Kong-an, it is similar to a Kong-an in miniature, or a compressed Kong-an, for the general effect resulted in contemplating on Hua-to was supposed to be the same in contemplating on Kong-an. The instance of Hua-to scrutinized here is “Who is saying ‘Namo Amito-Fo’ (or 'Namo Amitabha Buddha')?”

The third genre of contemplation in Ch’an Buddhism is one based on the Text of the Sutras. And under this rubric, the one cited and examined here is just a very prestigious one, if not the most renowned; it is called “The Seven Inquiries to locate the Mind,” from The Surangama Sutra. With the knowledge and skills built up in learning to contemplate on the first two genres, the Kong-an and Hua-to, one would then be able to go on to learn and practice the contemplation of this genre. And having learned about the three genres of contemplation presented in this book, one would virtually have covered the most predominant contemplations in Ch’an Buddhism. (Source Accessed Mar 12, 2020)
Kuan, Cheng. Three Contemplations toward Buddha Nature: Lectures on Buddhism for English Meditation Class at Chuang Yen Monastery, N.Y. Vol. 2 of A Trilogy of Ch'an. 2nd ed. n.p.: Americana Buddhist Temple, 2018.
Book
Tibetan Zen
Until the early twentieth century, hardly any traces of the Tibetan tradition of Chinese Chan Buddhism, or Zen, remained. Then the discovery of a sealed cave in Dunhuang, full of manuscripts in various languages dating from the first millennium CE, transformed our understanding of early Zen. This book translates some of the earliest surviving Tibetan Zen manuscripts preserved in Dunhuang. The translations illuminate different aspects of the Zen tradition, with brief introductions that not only discuss the roles of ritual, debate, lineage, and meditation in the early Zen tradition but also explain how these texts were embedded in actual practices. (Source: Shambhala Publications)
Schaik, Sam van. Tibetan Zen: Discovering A Lost Tradition. Boston: Snow Lion Publications, 2015.
Book
Transmission of Light
A translation of the classic Denkoroku by one of the premier translators of Buddhist and Taoist texts illustrates how to arrive at the epiphanic Zen awakening known as satori.

The essential initiatory experience of Zen, satori is believed to open up the direct perception of things as they are. "Even if you sit until your seat breaks through, even if you persevere mindless of fatigue, even if you are a person of lofty deeds and pure behavior, if you haven't reached this realm of satori, you still can't get out of the prison of the world." Deliberately cultivated and employed to awaken the dormant potency of the mind, satori is said to be accessible to all people, transcending time, history, culture, race, gender, and personality.

Attributed to the thirteenth-century Zen Master Keizan (1268–1325), Transmission of Light (along with The Blue Cliff Record and The Gateless Barrier) is one of three essential koan texts used by Zen students. Techniques for reaching the enlightening experience of satori are revealed through fifty-three short tales about the awakenings of successive generations of masters, beginning with the twelfth-century Zen master Ejo, dharma heir to Dogen.

The translator's introduction establishes the context for Transmission of Light within the Zen canon and elucidates central themes of the work, including the essential idea that genuine satori "is not the end of Zen; it is more properly the true beginning." (Source: Shambhala Publications)
Cleary, Thomas, trans. Transmission of Light (Denkoroku): Zen in the Art of Enlightenment. By Keizan. San Francisco, CA: North Point Press, 1990.
Book
Tsung-mi and the Sinification of Buddhism
This study of Tsung-mi is part of the Studies in East Asian Buddhism series. Author Peter Gregory makes extensive use of Japanese secondary sources, which complements his work on the complex Chinese materials that form the basis of the study. (Source: University of Hawai'i Press)
Gregory, Peter N. Tsung-mi and the Sinification of Buddhism. Kuroda Studies in East Asian Buddhism 16. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. First Published 1991 by Princeton University Press.
Book
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
Zen mind is one of those enigmatic phrases used by Zen teachers to throw you back upon yourself, to make you go behind the words themselves and begin wondering. "I know what my own mind is," you tell yourself, "but what is Zen mind?" And then: "But do I really know what my own mind is?" Is it what I am doing now? Is it what I am thinking now?" And if you should then try to sit physically still for a while to see if you can locate it—then you have begun the practice of Zen, then you have begun to realize the unrestricted mind.

The innocence of this first inquiry—just asking what you are—is beginner's mind. The mind of the beginner is needed throughout Zen practice. It is the open mind, the attitude that includes both doubt and possibility, the ability to see things always as fresh and new. It is needed in all aspects of life. Beginner's mind is the practice of Zen mind.

This book originated from a series of talks given by Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki to a small group is Los Altos, California. He joined their meditation periods once a week and afterwards answered their questions and tried to encourage them in their practice of Zen and help them solve the problems of life. His approach is informal, and he draws his examples from ordinary events and common sense. Zen is now and here, he is saying; it can be as meaningful for the West as for the East. But his fundamental teaching and practice and drawn from all the centuries of Zen Buddhism and especially from Dogen, one of the most important and creative of all Zen Masters.

This book is about how to practice Zen as a workable discipline and religion, about posture and breathing, about the basic attitudes and understanding that makes Zen practice possible, about non-duality, emptiness, and enlightenment. Here one begins to understand what Zen is really about. And, most important of all, every page breathes with the joy and simplicity that make a liberated life possible. (Source: inside jacket)


To listen to the audio book, click here
Suzuki, Shunryu. Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. New York: Weatherhill, 1995. First published 1970. https://archive.org/details/shunryusuzukizenmindbeginnersmind_242_x.

Articles

Article
Impermanence is Buddha Nature
Change isn’t just a fact of life we have to accept and work with, says Norman Fischer. Practitioners have always understood impermanence as the cornerstone of Buddhist teachings and practice. All that exists is impermanent; nothing lasts. Therefore nothing can be grasped or held onto. When we don’t fully appreciate this simple but profound truth we suffer, as did the monks who descended into misery and despair at the Buddha’s passing. When we do, we have real peace and understanding, as did the monks who remained fully mindful and calm...
Fischer, Norman. "Impermanence is Buddha Nature." Lion's Roar, April 8, 2019.

Multimedia

Video
Just Seeing Is Buddha-Nature: Talk by Bon Soeng at Empty Gate Zen Center
Soeng, Bon. "Just Seeing Is Buddha-Nature." Filmed March 13, 2013 in Berkeley, CA. Video, 33:05, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN9vZjMh65A.
Soeng, Bon. "Just Seeing Is Buddha-Nature." Filmed March 13, 2013 in Berkeley, CA. Video, 33:05, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN9vZjMh65A.

The Awakening of Faith is a key source text for buddha-nature theory in East Asian Buddhism.

original enlightenment - According to East Asian Buddhism, the intrinsic enlightenment of all sentient beings. This is obscured by the many stains present in the ālayavijñāna. When these are purified, the natural state of enlightenment is recovered, a status known as "actualized enlightenment." Ch. 本覺

ekayāna - The notion that ultimately there is only one vehicle, or means, of achieving enlightenment. Skt. एकयान Tib. ཐེག་པ་གཅིག་པ་ Ch. 一乘

ekayāna - The notion that ultimately there is only one vehicle, or means, of achieving enlightenment. Skt. एकयान Tib. ཐེག་པ་གཅིག་པ་ Ch. 一乘

The Awakening of Faith is a key source text for buddha-nature theory in East Asian Buddhism.

bodhi - Enlightenment or awakening. In Tibetan it is translated as "purified" (byang) and "perfected" (chub), which corresponds to Siddhartha Gautama's achievement of purifying all obscurations and perfecting or attaining all qualities associated with a buddha. Skt. बोधि Tib. བྱང་ཆུབ་ Ch. 菩提

tridharmacakrapravartana - Three successive stages of the Buddhist teachings. Though they are traditionally attributed to the historical Buddha, modern scholarship tends to view them as developmental stages that occurred over the course of an extended period of time, with interludes of several centuries, in which we see major doctrinal shifts often based on seemingly newly emergent scriptural sources. Skt. त्रिधर्मचक्रप्रवर्तन Tib. ཆོས་འཁོར་རིམ་པ་གསུམ་

śūnyatā - The state of being empty of an innate nature due to a lack of independently existing characteristics. Skt. शून्यता Tib. སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་ Ch. 空

śrāvaka - The disciples of the Buddha who aspire to attain individual liberation or nirvāṇa. The final goal of the Hearers is to become an arhat, a state in which one has totally eliminated the inner problems of attachment, hatred and ignorance, the main causes for rebirth in this cycle of existence. There are four stages of a śrāvaka path including eight phases. Skt. श्रावक Tib. ཉན་ཐོས། Ch. 聲聞

sūtra - Sūtras mainly refer to the discourses delivered by the Buddha and his disciples, and the Sūtra corpus is one of the three main sets of teachings which form the Buddhist canon. Skt. सूत्र Tib. མདོ། Ch. 佛经

Yogācāra - Along with Madhyamaka, it was one of the two major philosophical schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Founded by Asaṅga and Vasubandhu around the fourth century CE, many of its central tenets have roots in the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra and the so-called third turning of the dharma wheel (see tridharmacakrapravartana). Skt. योगाचार Tib. རྣལ་འབྱོར་སྤྱོད་པ་ Ch. 瑜伽行派

amalavijñāna - The ninth consciousness, the immaculate pure mind. Ch. 啊摩羅識

amalavijñāna - The ninth consciousness, the immaculate pure mind. Ch. 啊摩羅識

sūtra - Sūtras mainly refer to the discourses delivered by the Buddha and his disciples, and the Sūtra corpus is one of the three main sets of teachings which form the Buddhist canon. Skt. सूत्र Tib. མདོ། Ch. 佛经

Taishō - Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō, Chinese Tripiṭaka

ālayavijñāna - A neutral base consciousness that is posited as the storehouse for the seeds of past karmic actions in which they remain in a latent state until the circumstances arise for them to ripen as karmic consequences. Skt. आलयविज्ञान Tib. ཀུན་གཞིའི་རྣམ་ཤེས་ Ch. 藏識

tathāgatagarbha - Buddha-nature, literally the "womb/essence of those who have gone (to suchness)." Skt. तथागतगर्भ Tib. དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་ Ch. 如来藏

śūnyatā - The state of being empty of an innate nature due to a lack of independently existing characteristics. Skt. शून्यता Tib. སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་ Ch. 空

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