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The Spirit of Zen

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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)

Citation	Schaik, Sam van. The Spirit of Zen. The Sacred Literature Series. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018.

ContentsSources

• • Prefacexi

• PART I Introducing Zen1

• 1 The Practice of Zen3
• 2 Zen and the West19
• 3 The History of Zen31
• 4 The Lost Texts of Zen47
• 5 Early Zen Meditation63

• PART II The Masters of the Lanka83

• 6 Manuscripts and Translation85
• 7 Jingjue: Student of Emptiness88
• 8 Guṇabhadra: Introducing the Laṅkāvatāra102
• 9 Bodhidharma: Sudden and Gradual114
• 10 Huike: The Buddha Within129
• 11 Sengcan: Heaven in a Grain of Sand141
• 12 Daoxin I: How to Sit150
• 13 Daoxin II: Teachings for Beginners168
• 14 Hongren: The Buddha in Everything181
• 15 Shenxiu: Zen in the World194

• • Notes209
  • References244
  • Index250

1. Jìngjué (淨覺), comp. Léngqié Shīzī Jì (楞伽師資記) (Masters of the Laṅkā). T2837, 85: https://21dzk.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/SAT2012/ddb-bdk-sat2.php?mode=detail&useid=0310_.

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