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Original Nature is the historic translation and commentary on the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch of Chinese Zen by America's first Zen Master, Sokei-an Sasaki (1882-1945). Finally available, 75 years after its completion, Sokei-an considered the Sixth Patriach's message an essential foundation for the transmission of Zen to America "I think the Sixth Patriarch never dreamed that his record... would be explained to Westerners in New York... I feel that I am in a valley between huge mountains, and that the ancient simple minded woodcutters, fisherman, monks and nuns who are living in the mountains have come to the place where they always make their gatherings, and that I am one of them now..."
Of the many eccentric figures in Japanese Zen, the Soto Zen master Tosui Unkei (d. 1683) is surely among the most colorful and extreme. Variously compared to Ryokan and Francis of Assisi, Tosui has been called "the original hippie." After many grueling years of Zen study and the sanction of a distinguished teacher, Tosui abandoned the religious establishment and became a drifter. The arresting details of Tosui's life were recorded in the Tribute (Tosui osho densan), a lively and colloquial account written by the celebrated scholar and Soto Zen master Menzan Zuiho. Menzan concentrates on Tosui's years as a beggar and laborer, recounting episodes from an unorthodox life while at the same time ...
Jizo is an important bodhisattva or "saint" of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition. Most prominent today in Japanese Zen, Jizo is understood to be the protector of those journeying through the physical and spiritual realms. This bodhisattva is closely associated with children, believed to be their guardian before birth, throughout childhood, and after death. Here, an American Zen master offers an engaging and informative overview of the history of this important figure and conveys the practices and rituals connected with him, including a simple ceremony for remembering children who have died. Inspired by her own personal experience with Jizo practice, Bays explains how the Buddhist teachings on Jizo can bring peace to those confronted with suffering and loss.
We live in a century in which we must either change our way of regarding and acting toward nature or else imperil our survival as a species and jeopardize as well the fate of the planet itself. This book by a theologian and environmental scientist examines four religious figures from European and Asian contexts who could aid us in developing a more sustainable and caring orientation, which would allow us to live more "in tune" with creation: twelfth-century German nun Hildegard of Bingen, thirteenth-century Italian monk and patron saint of ecology Francis of Assisi, nineteenth-century Japanese Zen monk and poet Taigu RyĆkan, and the first pontiff from Latin America, twenty-first-century Pope Francis. By emphasizing our intimate and unavoidable organic connection with the network of all life and our charge to care for and protect it, they point us in the direction of a new paradigm, a healthier perspective, a metanoia--a change of heart, mind, attitude, and action--that would partner what we know about nature (an environmental consciousness) with what we do (an ecological conscience). Our children, our grandchildren, and our great-grandchildren deserve at least this much.
Annotation Shifting Shape, Shaping Text examines the fox koan in relation to philosophical and institutional issues facing the Ch'an/Zen tradition in both Sung China and medieval and contemporary Japan.