Unlocking The Zen Koan

Author :
Publisher : National Geographic Books
ISBN 13 : 155643247X
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Unlocking the Zen Koan written by and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 1997-09-24 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Elusive and enigmatic, zen koans have long puzzled people with their surprise meanings hidden in simple tales. Now one of America's finest translators of Asian philosophy provides a brillian new translation of the 12th century Wumenguan, the most popular of Chinese Zen koans. In Unlocking the Zen Koan (originally published as No Boundary), Thomas Cleary translates directly from the Chinese and interprets Zen Master Wumen's text and commentaries in verse and prose on the inner meaning of the koans. Cleary then gives us other great Chinese Zen masters' comments in prose or verse on the same koan. Cleary's probing, analytic commentaries wrestle with meaning and shading, explaining principles and practices. Five different steps to follow in reading the koan being with its use as a single abrupt perception, and lead progressively to more intellectual readings, illustrating the fixations which stand in the way of a true Zen understanding.

Author : Huikai
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book No Barrier written by Huikai and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Steven Heine
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199837287
Total Pages : 279 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Like Cats and Dogs written by Steven Heine and published by Oxford University Press. 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.

Author : John Tarrant
Publisher : Shambhala Publications
ISBN 13 : 9780834823495
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.97/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Bring Me the Rhinoceros written by John Tarrant and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2008-11-11 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bring Me the Rhinoceros is an unusual guide to happiness and a can opener for your thinking. For fifteen hundred years, Zen koans have been passed down through generations of masters, usually in private encounters between teacher and student. This book deftly retells more than a dozen traditional koans, which are partly paradoxical questions dangerous to your beliefs and partly treasure boxes of ancient wisdom. Koans show that you don’t have to impress people or change into an improved, more polished version of yourself. Instead you can find happiness by unbuilding, unmaking, throwing overboard, and generally subverting unhappiness. John Tarrant brings the heart of the koan tradition out into the open, reminding us that the old wisdom remains as vital as ever, a deep resource available to anyone in any place or time.

Author : James Ishmael Ford
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1614293155
Total Pages : 242 pages
Book Rating : 4.56/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Introduction to Zen Koans written by James Ishmael Ford and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An indispensible guide to koans, teaching the reader about the importance of lineage, the practice of “just sitting,” and koan practice as paths to awakening. “This marvelous book opens the treasure house of Zen and yet, happily, does not dispel its mystery. James Ford, an excellent storyteller and longtime Zen practitioner, presents a detailed and beautiful description of the craft of zazen, including “just sitting” and various forms of breath meditation—but focuses primarily on koan introspection. The power of koans, these 'public cases' from China, has never ceased to enrich my own experience of Zen. They are a medium of exploration of the history, culture, and view of Zen, but most importantly are a medium of awakening. James Ford is fundamentally a koan person, and for this, the book is particularly rich, opening the practice of koans in a splendid way. I am grateful for his long experience as a teacher and practitioner of this rare and powerful practice. Since the word koan has found its way into popular English usage, I am grateful too for the more nuanced and fertile view of koans that Ford presents. His definition of the word is telling: “a koan points to something of deep importance, and invites us to stand in that place.” He has also has created a wonderful translation of the Heart Sutra, Zen’s central scripture—and carefully opens up the heart of the Heart Sutra through scholarship and practice. Rich in textual sources and woven throughout with the perspectives of contemporary teachers, Introduction to Zen Koans sheds new light on ancient teachings. Through it, the reader will discover the importance of lineage, the traceless traces of the Zen ancestors, and the places of “just sitting” and koan practice as paths to awakening, as the great doorways into Zen.” —from the foreword by Joan Halifax

Author : Victor Sogen Hori
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 0824865677
Total Pages : 785 pages
Book Rating : 4.72/5 ( download)

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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 785 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.

Author : Thomas F. Cleary
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 978 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Classics of Buddhism and Zen: Transmission of Light, Unlocking the Zen Koan, The Original Face, Timeless Spring, Zen Antics, Record of Things Heard, Sleepless Nights written by Thomas F. Cleary and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 978 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents instructions, meditation guides, quotations, letters, essays, dialogues, and other writings by Zen masters over the centuries that were translated and published over a period of thirty years.

Author : Steven Heine
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190291737
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.30/5 ( download)

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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.

Author : Thomas Cleary
Publisher : National Geographic Books
ISBN 13 : 1590302494
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.91/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Book of Serenity written by Thomas Cleary and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2005-03-22 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Book of Serenity is a translation of Shoyo Roku, a collection of one hundred Zen koans with commentaries that stands as a companion to the other great Chinese koan collection, the Blue Cliff Record (Pi Yen Lu). A classic of Chan (Chinese Zen) Buddhism, Book of Serenity has been skillfully rendered into English by the renowned translator Thomas Cleary. Compiled in China in the twelfth century, the Book of Serenity is, in the words of Zen teacher Tenshin Reb Anderson, "an auspicious peak in the mountain range of Zen literature, a subtle flowing stream in the deep valleys of our teaching, a treasure house of inspiration and guidance in studying the ocean of Buddhist teachings." Each one of its one hundred chapters begins with an introduction, along with a main case, or koan, taken from Zen lore or Buddhist scripture. This is followed by commentary on the main case, verses inspired by it, and, finally, further commentary on all of these. The book contains a glossary of Zen/Chan terms and metaphors.

Author : Thomas Yuho Kirchner
Publisher : Wisdom Publications
ISBN 13 : 9781614296157
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Entangling Vines written by Thomas Yuho Kirchner and published by Wisdom Publications. This book was released on 2019-06-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most contemporary of the the classic koan collections—representing centuries of practical refinement by Zen masters working with their students. Entangling Vines is a translation of the Shumon Kattoshu, the only major koan text to have been compiled in Japan rather than China. Most of the central koans of the contemporary Rinzai koan curriculum are contained in this work. Indeed, Kajitani Sonin (1914–1995)—former chief abbot of Shokoku-ji and author of an annotated, modern-Japanese translation of the Kattoshu—commented that “herein are compiled the basic Dharma materials of the koan system.” A distinctive feature of Entangling Vines is that, unlike the Gateless Gate and Blue Cliff Record, it presents the koans “bare,” with no introductions, commentaries, or verses. The straightforward structure of its presentation lends the koans added force and immediacy, emphasizing the Great Matter, the essential point to be interrogated, while providing ample material for the rigors of examining and refining Zen experience. Containing 272 cases and extensive annotation, the collection is not only indispensable for serious koan training but also forms an excellent introduction to Buddhist philosophy.