Zen Dust

Originally published in Kyoto in 1966 by the First Zen Institute of America in Japan, and by Harcourt, Brace & World in New York in 1967, "Zen Dust: The History of the Koan and Koan Study in Rinzai (Linji) Zen" quickly established itself as the only major resource into Zen koan study available in any Western language. Long since out of print, this Quirin Pinyin Updated Editions (QPUE) Revised Edition offers the full original text with the following features: Older Wade-Giles transliteration fully updated and revised to the current Pinyin standard. Fully re-typeset and proofed for typographical errors and inconsistencies. A fully searchable E-book edition of this title will be made available in PDF format. Not to be confused with the earlier title by the same authors on the Zen koan, which is a much shorter preliminary version of the present volume, Zen Dust: The History of the Koan and Koan Study in Rinzai (Linji) Zen is divided into five main sections: Part One is an extensive essay by Ruth Fuller Sasaki on the history of the koan in Chinese and Japanese Rinzai Zen and how it developed into a unique technique to aid the monk in quest of enlightenment. Part Two is a translation of a series of lectures on koan study given by the Zen master Issh Miura R shi Part Three offers a selection of Zen phrases or capping phrases that were used as commentary and annotations to the often enigmatic koans. The notes to the first two sections of Zen Dust offer a veritable treasure trove of background information on the monks and masters that forged the koan-study tradition of Rinzai Zen in China and Japan. This is followed by an extensively descriptive bibliography that teases out the vast literature of Zen in particular and Buddhism in general by giving considerable background material not only on the content of the works but also the context in which they came to be put together. Along with the appendices, which include genealogical charts of Zen lines, and the extensive index, it is these last sections (totaling nearly 400 pages) that make Zen Dust an invaluable companion not only for students and Zen adepts seeking to delve in the unique spiritual training that koan study entails, but also for scholars and researchers of Zen Buddhism. Keywords: Koan. Zen Buddhism. Rinzai Size: Paperback xx + 531 pages 6 x 9 in. / 234 x 156 mm. 1.8 lb /816 gm For details and updates, including occasional extracts and special offers, visit our website quirinpress.com and follow us Twitter @QuirinPress"

A trip down the lesser-known back roads of the Karoo, from Kimberley to Colesburg, this account finds divinity in the dust and Buddha in every pothole in South Africa. With gentle wisdom and deep compassion, the author connects with the people he meets along the way and shares their stories, past and present, as well as his own personal history and insights. The road is sprinkled with his special brand of poetry and interwoven with a fresh telling of the tale of Gotama, the man who would become Buddha.

In Jizo Bodhisattva, Zen teacher and practicing pediatrician Jan Chozen Bays explores the development of traditional Buddhist practices related to Jizo, as well as the growing interest in Jizo practice in modern American Zen Buddhism. She also shows how you can incorporate this rich tradition into your own life, through meditations, mantras and chanting. In traditional Buddhist belief, a bodhisattva is an enlightened being who has forsaken entry into nirvana until all beings are saved. Jizo, one of the four great bodhisattvas of Mahayana Buddhism, is know as "the Bodhisattva of the Greatest Vows." He is regarded as the protector of travelers—whether their journeys in the physical world, or in the spiritual reams. Jizo also has special significance for pregnant women and parents whose children have died.

Discover how the mysterious, powerful form of the koan—known for bringing about sudden enlightenment—can disrupt and illuminate your everyday understanding of life. Traditionally, Zen koans—the teaching stories of Zen—are drawn from the words and teachings of ancient masters and primarily address the concerns of (male) monastic practitioners. In The Crow Flies Backward, Ross Bolleter changes all at. The 108 modern koans offered within address sexuality and childbirth, family, parenthood, work, money and even the nature time itself. These koans are drawn from a variety of modern sources: Western philosophy, the Bible, contemporary and classic literature from Proust to Lewis Carroll and Mary Oliver and Anne Carson, as well as stories provided by author’s encounters with his Zen students. Bolleter’s commentaries provide guidance to the reader on how to engage with each koan and koans in general, and direct guidance to meditate with koans. An appendix offers rarely-seen intimate and in-depth accounts of the process of koan introspection, from four of the author’s senior students.

Unparalleled in scope and detail, this classic history of Zen covers all important ideas and developments in the tradition from its beginnings in India through the Sung period in China.

In this second volume of his classic history, one of the world's foremost Zen scholars turns his attention to the development of Zen in Japan.

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.

Although East Asian religion is commonly characterized as "syncretic," the historical interaction of Buddhist, Confucian, and other traditions is often neglected by scholars of mainstream religious thought. In this thought-provoking study, Janine Sawada moves beyond conventional approaches to the history of Japanese religion by analyzing the ways in which Neo-Confucianism and Zen formed a popular synthesis in early modern Japan. She shows how Shingaku, a teaching founded by merchant Ishida Baigan, blossomed after his death into a widespread religious movement that selectively combined ideas and practices from these traditions. Drawing on new research into original Shingaku sources, Sawada challenges the view that the teaching was a facile "merchant ethic" by illuminating the importance of Shingaku mystical experience and its intimate relation to moral cultivation in the program developed by Baigan's successor, Teshima Toan. This book also suggests the need for an approach to the history of Japanese education that accounts for the informal transmission of ideas as well as institutional schooling. Shingaku contributed to the development of Japanese education by effectively disseminating moral and religious knowledge on a large scale to the less-educated sectors of Tokugawa society. Sawada interprets the popularity of the movement as part of a general trend in early modern Japan in which ordinary people sought forms of learning that could be pursued in the context of daily life.