Opening a Mountain: Koans of the Zen Masters

Opening a Mountain: Koans of the Zen Masters - Steven Heine
Koans are paradoxical statements intended to derail mental business-as-usual for the Zen Buddhist student on the journey to enlightenment. A book about koans at first glance seems itself paradoxical, since it requires the cognitive discrimination that koans seek to upend. Yet the tradition of koans comprises centuries of commentary by students and masters, which records the mental wrestling that koan use embodies. With this study, Heine, a professor of religious studies and history at Florida International University, augments his own contribution to Zen studies, which already consists of a dozen books. Heine organizes koans from a variety of sources to illustrate the Chinese and Japanese historical contexts from which the koan "canon" emerged. He argues that koans play upon, and with, elements of the supernatural that prevailed in the popular religious traditions that Zen encountered and transformed. His 60 selected koans, for which he provides his own prose translations, support his thesis and distinguish yet another interpretive strand in the bundle of non-dualistic possibilities entangled in the koan. This is not a book for the nightstand Buddhist; readers educated in Buddhist thought, however, can better appreciate the whimsical and formidable discipline that koans represent and cultivate. This book is a respectful and respectable contribution to the growing body of contemporary Buddhist studies at a time when Buddhism is establishing a vital presence in the American religious landscape.

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The Koan: Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism - Steven Heine, Dale S. Wright

The Koan: Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism - Steven Heine, Dale S. Wright
Koans are enigmatic spiritual formulas used for religious training in the Zen Buddhist tradition. Arguing that our understanding of the koan tradition has been extremely 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.
Those with a serious interest in the history of Zen Buddhism will find the essays collected here an invaluable resource. The koan, often subject of unwarranted mystification, is examined in a series of eleven substantial essays by an international group of scholars

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Did Dogen Go to China?: What He Wrote and When He Wrote It - Steven Heine

Did Dogen Go to China?: What He Wrote and When He Wrote It - Steven Heine
Dogen (1200-1253), the founder of the Soto Zen sect in Japan, is especially known for introducing to Japanese Buddhism many of the texts and practices that he discovered in China. Heine reconstructs the context of Dogen's travels to and reflections on China by means of a critical look at traditional sources both by and about Dogen in light of recent Japanese scholarship. While many studies emphasize the unique features of Dogen's Japanese influences, this book calls attention to the way Chinese and Japanese elements were fused in Dogen's religious vision. It reveals many new materials and insights into Dogen's main writings, including the multiple editions of the Shobogenzo, and how and when this seminal text was created by Dogen and was edited and interpreted by his disciples. This book is the culmination of the author's thirty years of research on Dogen and provides the reader with a comprehensive approach to the master's life works and an understanding of the overall career trajectory of one of the most important figures in the history of Buddhism and Asian religious thought.

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Zen Classics: Formative Texts in the History of Zen Buddhism

Zen Classics: Formative Texts in the History of Zen Buddhism

This is a companion volume to The Koan and The Zen Canon, by the same editors. The first volume collected original essays on koan collections, recorded sayings of individual masters, histories of major schools, and compilations of monastic regulations. The second focuses on the early history of Zen in China, providing overview assessments of many of the most important canonical texts that set the Zen tradition in motion throughout East Asia. Zen Classics will follow that historical movement, focusing primarily on texts from Korea and Japan that brought this Buddhist movement to fruition. Although enormously diverse in style and structure all of the texts and genres of texts considered here were fundamental to the unfolding of Zen in East Asia. The range of genres reveals the varieties of Zen practice, from rules of daily practice to sermons and meditation manuals. The all new essays in this volume will be contributed by an international team of distinguished scholars of Buddhism. It is aimed at broad audience including college students, Zen practitioners, and scholars of East Asian history, religion, and culture, as well as specialists in Buddhist history.

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Zen Ritual: Studies of Zen Buddhist Theory in Practice

Zen Ritual: Studies of Zen Buddhist Theory in Practice - Steven Heine
When books about Zen Buddhism began appearing in Western languages just over a half-century ago, there was no interest whatsoever in the role of ritual in Zen. Indeed, what attracted Western readers' interest was the Zen rejection of ritual. The famous 'Beat Zen' writers were delighted by the Zen emphasis on spontaneity as opposed to planned, repetitious action, and wrote inspirationally about the demythologized, anti-ritualized spirit of Zen. Quotes from the great Zen masters supported this understanding of Zen, and led to the fervor that fueled the opening of Zen centers throughout the West.
Once Western practitioners in these centers began to practice Zen seriously, however, they discovered that zazen - Zen meditation - is a ritualized practice supported by centuries-old ritual practices of East Asia. Although initially in tension with the popular anti-ritual image of ancient Zen masters, interest in Zen ritual has increased along with awareness of its fundamental role in the spirit of Zen. Eventually, Zen practitioners would form the idea of no-mind, or the open and awakened state of mind in which ingrained habits of thinking give way to more receptive, direct forms of experience. This notion provides a perspective from which ritual could gain enormous respect as a vehicle to spiritual awakening, and thus this volume seeks to emphasize the significance of ritual in Zen practice.
Containing 9 articles by prominent scholars on a variety of topics, including the Zen rituals kinhin and zazen, this volume covers from the early Chan period to modern Japan. Each chapter deals with key developments in the Linji/Rinzai and Caodon/ Soto schools of China and Japan, describing how Zen rituals mold the lives and characters of its practitioners and shape them in accordance with the ideal of Zen awakening. This volume is a significant step toward placing these practices in a larger historical and analytical perspective.

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