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Over 1,700 alphabetically-arranged entries cover the beliefs, practices, significant movements, organizations, and personalities associated with Zen Buddhism.
This is the first detailed English-language study of the Obaku branch of Japanese Zen. Beginning with the founding of the sect in Japan by Chinese monks in the seventeenth century, the volume describes the conflicts and maneuverings within the Buddhist and secular communities that led to the emergence of Obaku as a distinctive institution during the early Tokugawa period. Throughout the author explores a wide range of texts and includes excerpts from important primary documents such as the Zenrin shuheishu and the Obaku geki, translated here for the first time. She provides an impressive portrait of the founding Chinese leadership and the first generation of Japanese converts, whose work ena...
Iron Eyes focuses on the Japanese Zen master Tetsugen Doko (1630–1682), the best-known exponent of Ōbaku in Japan and the West. Ōbaku Zen arose during the seventeenth century and became the third major Zen sect in Japan. Ōbaku monks encouraged the laity to deepen their knowledge of and commitment to Buddhism. Tetsugen is credited with producing the first complete wood block edition of the Chinese Buddhist scriptures in Japan. Legend has it that Tetsugen had to raise the money for the project three times: twice his great compassion led him to give away the money he had raised to the starving victims of natural disasters. This Zen story is well-known in Japan and has gained popularity among contemporary Buddhists in the West. The first part of this book offers an introduction and a series of analytical chapters describing Tetsugen's life, work, and teachings, as well as the legends related to him. The second part comprises annotated translations of his major teaching texts, important letters and other historical documents, a selection of his poetry, and several traditional biographies.
Love, Roshi explores the relationship between Robert Baker Aitken (1917–2010), American Zen teacher and author, and his distant correspondents, individuals drawn to Zen teachings and practice through books. Aitken, founder of the Honolulu Diamond Sangha, promoted Zen to a wide audience in works such as Taking the Path of Zen and The Mind of Clover. Aitken's twentieth-century American Zen valued social justice and was compatible with work and family life. Helen J. Baroni makes use of Aitken's extensive correspondence preserved in an archive at the University of Hawaii to provide a window to view the beliefs and practices of the least-studied—and a difficult to study—segment of the Weste...
The stereotype of Zen Buddhism as a minimalistic or even immaterial meditative tradition persists in the Euro-American cultural imagination. This volume calls attention to the vast range of "stuff" in Zen by highlighting the material abundance and iconic range of the Soto, Rinzai, and Obaku sects in Japan. Chapters on beads, bowls, buildings, staffs, statues, rags, robes, and even retail commodities in America all shed new light on overlooked items of lay and monastic practice in both historical and contemporary perspectives. Nine authors from the cognate fields of art history, religious studies, and the history of material culture analyze these "Zen matters" in all four senses of the phrase...
This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2015. This book deals with the rapidly developing field of spirituality. Although having a singularity of focus, the chapters have been written by a cross-cultural and international set of researchers who discuss critical issues from an interdisciplinary perspective. Thus, while a broad range of critical aspects emerge, the chapters are threaded together by the concept of spirituality as a lone walk. While alone, the spiritual journey is also deeply connected to others. As a deeply human experience the chapters in this book therefore reflect the prismatic viewpoints that form the understandings and experiences of the spiritual walk. This book challenges the reader to start to understand the apparent ambiguity this appears to bring to researchers and practitioners. Rather than a roadblock to understanding, the multiple frames and facets this brings it is instead a rich field for the exploration of the human condition.
This study addresses the relationship between Japanese aesthetics, a field steeped in philosophy and traditional knowledge, and anime, a prominent part of contemporary popular culture. There are three premises: (1) the abstract concepts promoted by Japanese aesthetics find concrete expression at the most disparate levels of everyday life; (2) the abstract and the concrete coalesce in the visual domain, attesting to the visual nature of Japanese culture at large; and (3) anime can help us appreciate many aspects of Japan's aesthetic legacy, in terms of both its theoretical propositions and its visual, even tangible, aspects.
This collection offers a challenge to any simple understanding of the role of images by looking at aspects of the reception of image worship that have only begun to be studied, including the many hesitations that Asian religious traditions expressed about image worship. Written by eminent scholars of anthropology, art history, and religion with interests in different regions (India, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia), this volume takes a fresh look at the many ways in which images were defined and received in Asian religions. Buddha Dharma Kyokai Foundation Book on Buddhism and Comparative Religion
A comprehensive, accessible guide to the fascinating history of Zen Buddhism--including important figures, schools, foundational texts, practices, and politics. Zen Buddhism has a storied history--Bodhidharma sitting in meditation in a cave for nine years; a would-be disciple cutting off his own arm to get the master's attention; the proliferating schools and intense Dharma combat of the Tang and Song Dynasties; Zen nuns and laypeople holding their own against patriarchal lineages; the appearance of new masters in the Zen schools of Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and later the Western world. In The Circle of the Way, Zen practitioner and popular religion writer Barbara O'Brien brings clarity to this huge swath of history by charting a middle way between Zen's traditional lore and the findings of modern historical scholarship. In a clear and often funny style, O'Brien parses fact from fiction while always attending to the greatest interest of contemporary practitioners--the development of Zen doctrine and practice as a living tradition across cultures and centuries.