Details

Subject(s)

• Zen Buddhism [Browse]
• Zen Buddhism—History [Browse]
• Zen literature—China—Dunhuang Caves [Browse]

Related name

• International Sacred Literature Trust [Browse]

Series

• Sacred literature series [More in this series]
• The sacred literature series

Summary note

Leading Buddhist scholar Sam van Schaik explores the history and practice of Zen, based on a new translation of one of the earliest surviving collections of teachings by Zen masters. These teachings, titled the Masters of the Lanka, were discovered in a sealed cave on the old Silk Road, in Dunhuang, China, in the early twentieth century. 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 practised in ancient times, and how it is practised today in East Asian countries including Japan, China, Korea and Vietnam, as well as in the emerging Western Zen tradition.

Notes

"Published in association with The International Sacred Literature Trust."

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references (pages 244-249) and index.

Contents

• Part I. Introducing Zen
• The practice of Zen
• Zen and the West
• The history of Zen
• The lost texts of Zen
• Early Zen meditation
• Part II. The masters of the Lanka
• Manuscripts and translation
• Jingjue : student of emptiness
• Guṇabhadra : introducing the Laṅkāvatāra
• Bodhidharma : sudden and gradual
• Huike : the Buddha within
• Sengcan : heaven in a grain of sand
• Daoxin I : how to sit
• Daoxin II : teachings for beginners
• Hongren : the Buddha in everything
• Shenxiu : Zen in the world.

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ISBN

• 0300221452 ((paperback))
• 9780300221459 ((paperback))

LCCN

2018942946

OCLC

1029892103

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