EALC 256: Zen Thought, Zen Culture, Zen History (HC/BMC)

Buddhism is one of the oldest and largest of the world's religions. But it is also a tradition that has proven to have enormous contemporary relevance. Founded by Siddhartha Gautama, who came to be called the Buddha, the religion has spread from its origins in northeast India, across Asia, andeventually to the West, taking on new forms at each step of the way. Buddhism: What Everyone Needs to Know offers readers a brief, authoritative guide to one of the world's most diverse religious traditions in a reader-friendly question-and-answer format. Dale Wright covers the origins and earlyhistory of Buddhism, the diversity of types of Buddhism throughout history, and the status of contemporary Buddhism. This is a go-to book for anyone seeking a basic understanding of the origins, history, teachings, and practices of Buddhism.

The tradition of Chan Buddhism--more popularly known as Zen--has been romanticized throughout its history. In this book, John R. McRae shows how modern critical techniques, supported by recent manuscript discoveries, make possible a more skeptical, accurate, and--ultimately--productive assessment of Chan lineages, teaching, fundraising practices, and social organization. Synthesizing twenty years of scholarship, Seeing through Zen offers new, accessible analytic models for the interpretation of Chan spiritual practices and religious history. Writing in a lucid and engaging style, McRae traces the emergence of this Chinese spiritual tradition and its early figureheads, Bodhidharma and the "sixth patriarch" Huineng, through the development of Zen dialogue and koans. In addition to constructing a central narrative for the doctrinal and social evolution of the school, Seeing through Zen examines the religious dynamics behind Chan's use of iconoclastic stories and myths of patriarchal succession. McRae argues that Chinese Chan is fundamentally genealogical, both in its self-understanding as a school of Buddhism and in the very design of its practices of spiritual cultivation. Furthermore, by forgoing the standard idealization of Zen spontaneity, we can gain new insight into the religious vitality of the school as it came to dominate the Chinese religious scene, providing a model for all of East Asia--and the modern world. Ultimately, this book aims to change how we think about Chinese Chan by providing new ways of looking at the tradition. TriCo has e-book access as well.

The Heart Sutra, just over a page long, distills the teachings of the Buddha to their purest essence. Perhaps the best known of all Buddhist sutras, it is recited in Buddhist centers and monasteries around the world. Emphasizing a living wisdom directly experienced, the schools of Chan have revered the Heart Sutra for its concise expression of the core revelations of the Buddha. There Is No Suffering is Chan Master Sheng-yen's commentary on the Heart Sutra. He speaks on the sutra from the Chan point of view, and presents it as a series of contemplation methods, encouraging readers to experience it directly through meditation and daily life. In this way, reading the Heart Sutra becomes more than just an intellectual exercise; it becomes a method of practice by which one can awaken to the fundamental wisdom inherent within each of us. Whether one wants a better understanding of Buddhist concepts or a deepened meditation practice, this commentary on the Heart Sutra can help.

This record of the life and teachings of Hui-neng, the Sixth Chan (Zen) Patriarch, is an eleventh-century compilation with ancillary materials. It deals with the Buddhist notion that the only criterion of any significance whatsoever is the experience of "seeing the Buddha-nature," realizing one's innate status as an enlightened being.

This anthology of secondary readings of The Platform Sutra is designed to introduce the undergraduate to one of the most popular and influential Chan (Zen) Buddhist texts. The sutra purportedly contains the teachings of Huineng (638-713), the sixth patriarch of China and the father of the Chan movement. Though recent research suggests that the work has little connection to Huineng, it does date to the eighth century and has had enduring popularity among monastics and the educated elite. Essays in the book include an overview of Chan Buddhism in China, the importance of The Platform Sutra to the tradition, the figure of Huineng, key concepts in Chan, philosophical ideas in the Platform text, transmission of the tradition, religious ordination and precepts, and the role of The Platform Sutra in the broader context of non-Buddhist Chinese thought. The editors and contributors, including Peter Gregory and Wendi Adamek, are among the most well-respected scholars of Buddhism today. A character glossary and bibliography complete the volume.

How do contemporary films depict Buddhists and Buddhism? What aspects of the Buddhist tradition are these films keeping from our view? By repeatedly romanticizing the meditating monk, what kinds of Buddhisms and Buddhists are missing in these films and why? Silver Screen Buddha is the first book to explore the intersecting representations of Buddhism, race, and gender in contemporary films. Sharon A. Suh examines the cinematic encounter with Buddhism that has flourished in Asia and in the West in the past century - from images of Shangri-La in Frank Capra's 1937 Lost Horizon to Kim Ki-Duk's 2003 international box office success Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring. The book helps readers see that representations of Buddhism in Asia and in the West are fraught with political, gendered, and racist undertones. Silver Screen Buddha draws significant attention to ordinary lay Buddhism, a form of the tradition given little play in popular film. By uncovering the differences between a fictionalized, commodified, and exoticized Buddhism, Silver Screen Buddha brings to light expressions of the tradition that highlight laity and women, on the one hand, and Asian and Asian Americans, on the other. Suh engages in a re-visioning of Buddhism that expands the popular understanding of the tradition, moving from the dominance of meditating monks to the everyday world of raced, gendered, and embodied lay Buddhists.

¿A veritable treasure trove.... Both demanding and tremendously rewarding.... The book is of high scholarly standard, but ... is clear, precise and a pleasure to read - and is certainly accessible to interested laymen. It cannot be recommended highly enough.¿ ¿The Middle Way, November 1993
¿Each chapter in this volume is sophisticated, tightly argued, and well documented.... An important contribution to the literature on Buddhist meditation.¿ ¿Journal of Asian Studies 47 (1988)

Koans are enigmatic spiritual formulas used for religious training in the Zen Buddhist tradition. Arguing that our understanding of the koan tradition has been severely limited, contributors to this collection examine previously unrecognized factors in the formation of this tradition, and highlight the rich complexity and diversity of koan practice and literature.

Shobogenzo: The True Dharma-eye Treasury (Taisho No. 2582) is the masterwork of the thirteenth-century Zen master Eihei Dogen, founder of the Soto sect of Japanese Zen Buddhism. This reprint edition presents Volume 1 of the exemplary translation by Gudo Wafu Nishijima and Chodo Cross of the complete ninety-five-chapter edition of the Shobogenzo, compiled by the Zen master Hangyo Kozen in the late seventeenth century.