Perle Besserman & Manfred Steger, Crazy Clouds: Zen Radicals, Rebels and Reformers (Boston & London: Shambhala, 1991).
Bodhidharma, The Zen Teachings of Bodhidharma, A Bilingual Edition translated and with an Introduction by Red Pine (New York: North Point Press / Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1987) ("Buddhas don't save buddhas. If you use your mind to look for a buddha, you won't see the buddha. As long as you look for a buddha somewhere else, you'll never see that your own mind is the buddha. Don't use a buddha to worship a buddha. And don't use the mind to invoke a buddha. Buddhas don't recite sutras. Buddhhas don't keep precepts. And buddhas don't break precepts. Buddhas don't keep or break anything. Buddhas don't do good or evil." "To find a buddha, you have to see your nature. Whoever sees his nature is a buddha. If you don't see your nature, invoking buddhas, reciting sutras, making offerings, and keeping precepts are all useless. Invoking buddhas results in good karma, reciting sutras results in a good memory; keeping precepts results in a good rebirth, and making offerings results in future blessings--but no buddha." Id. at 11-13. "Buddha is Sanskrit for what you call aware, miraculously aware. Responding, perceiving, arching your brows, blinking your eyes, moving your hands and feet, it's all your miraculously aware nature. And this nature is the mind.. And the mind is the buddha. And the buddha is the path. And the path is zen. But the word zen is one that remains a puzzle to both mortals and sages. Seeing your nature is zen. Unless you see your nature, it's not zen." Id. at 29. "If you're going to invoke the Buddha, you have to do it right. Unless you understand what invoking means, you'll do it wrong. And if you do it wrong, you'll never go anywhere." "Buddha means awareness, the awareness of body and mind that prevents evil from arising in either. And to invoke means to call to mind, to call constantly to mind the rules of discipline and to follow them with all your might. This is what's meant by invoking. Invoking has to do with thought and not with language. If you use a trap to catch fish, once you succeed you can forget the trap. And if you use language to find meaning, once you find it you can forget language." "To invoke the Buddha's name you have to understand the dharma of invoking. If it's not present in your mind, your mouth chants an empty name.... Chanting and invoking are worlds apart. Chanting is done with the month. Invoking is done with the mind. And because invoking comes from the mind, it's the door to awareness. If you cling to appearances while searching for meaning, you won't find a thing. Thus, sages of the past cultivated introspection and not speech." Id. at 109-111.).
Thomas Cleary, ed., & trans., Rational Zen: The Mind of Dogen Zenji (Boston & London: Shambhala, 1993) ("Zen Buddhism does not teach escapism, chronic withdrawal, or denial of ordinary reality. The late Tang dynasty master Caoshan (Sozan) said, 'There is no need to avoid or escape anything; just know about it, that's enough. If you try to avoid it, it's still affecting you. Just don't be changed or affected by things, and you'll be free.'" Id. at 6).
Heinrich Dumoulin, Zen Buddhism: A History, Volume 1: India and China, translated by James W, Heisig and Paul Knitter, with an Introduction by John McRae (Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom, 2005) ("In order to bring the spiritual and intellectual context of Zen into clearer relief, however, we can focus on the great Mahayana sutras that enjoy a special proximity to Zen. These sutras give voice to the new spiritual inspiration of Mahayana and offer an important stimulus to speculative reflection.... At first, Western literature on Zen did not pay sufficient attention to this relationship; for a long time, fascination with the early Chinese masters of whom the chronicles and koan collections speak overshadowed the Indian sutras." "The two decisive components of Zen are the Mahayana sutras, which provide its religious-metaphysical roots, and the Chinese spirit, which provides its distinctive dynamism. Any attempt to understand the spiritual environment of Zen must take both elements into account. It was only when the Chinese leaven was added to Mahayana Buddhism that the fermentation process began that resulted in Zen...." Id. at 41. "That the Chinese showed a preference for Mahayana over Hinayana is due principally to the wisdom teachings of the Prajnaparamita sutras, which they found to resonate deeply with their own spiritual heritage." Id. at 66. "Taoism played a central role in the reception that China gave to Buddhism. An appreciation of the close relationship between these two religions during the early years of Chinese Buddhism paves the way for understanding how the Taoist influence on Buddhism was later to culminate in the teachings of the Zen school. . . . More significant are the limes of contact running between the growing Buddhist movement and the stream of Taoist spirituality that were inaugurated at the end of the Han period, Meditation, in a variety of forms, pervaded religious praxis at all strata, but the most profound influence rested in the spiritual bonds between the Buddhism of the Mahayana sutras and Taoist teachings on wisdom. The 'Taoist guiise' that Buddhism donned did not remain external but worked deep-reaching changes on Buddhist thought. This encounter nourished the various schools of Chinese Buddhism, all of which were intimately related to one another dispute doctrinal differences. With the development of Zen, the spring swelled into a mighty torrent, This dies not mean that the origins of the Zen school can be explained simply as a more or less fortuitous blend of Buddhist and Taoist elements. We should rather say that what developed during the T'ang period was a new awareness of the creative energies inherent in Chinese Buddhism, an awareness that grew until it resulted in the formation of the unique meditation school of Mahayana that is Zen." Id. at 68.).
Heinrich Dumoulin, Zen Buddhism: A History, Volume 2: Japan, translated by James W, Heisig and Paul Knitter, with an Introduction by Victor Sogen Hori (Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom, 2005).
Heinrich Dumoulin, Zen Enlightenment: Origins and Meaning, translated from the German by John C. Maraldo (New York & Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1978).
Huang Po, The Zen Teachings of Huang Po: On the Transmission of Mind, translated by John Blofeld (New York: Grove Press, 1958) ("17. Ordinary people all indulge in conceptual thought based on environmental phenomena, hence they feel desire and hatred. To eliminate environmental phenomena, just put an end to your conceptual thinking. When this ceases, environmental phenomena are void; and when these are void, thought ceases. But if you try to eliminate environment without first putting a stop to conceptual thought, you will not succeed, but merely increase its power to disturb you. Thus all things are naught but Mind--intangible Mind; so what can you hope to attain? Those who are students of Prajna hold that there is nothing tangible whatever, so they cease thinking of the Three Vehicles. There is only the one reality, neither to be realized nor attained. To say 'I am able to realize something' or 'I am able to attain something' is to place yourself among the arrogant. The men who flapped their garments and left the meeting as mentioned in the Lotus Sutra were just such people. Therefore, the Buddha said: 'I truly obtained nothing from Enlightenment.' There is just mysterious tacit understanding and no more." Id. at 44-45.).).
Hui Hai, Zen Teaching of Instantaneous Awaking: being the teachings of the Zen Master Hui Hai, Known as the Great Pearl, translated by John Blofeld, with a Foreword by Charles Luk (Devon, UK: Buddhist Publishing Group, 1987) ("As to the central goal of Buddhism, it is this: When we have learnt (and in our turn taught) how to be utterly dispassionate, how to view all things in their essential oneness; when outflows cannot be enticed from us by any object whatsoever, nor the smallest stain be left upon our minds; then phenomena lose their power to defile and we dwell quiescently in the innate purity of our own minds, discovering moreover that these minds are not ours at all, but uncreated, everlasting mind itself." Id. at 19.).
Philip Kapleau, ed., The Wheel of Death: A Collection of Writings from Zen Buddhist and Other Sources on Death, Rebirth, Dying (Harper Colophon Books, 1971, 1974.).
Philip Kapleau, The Wheel of Life and Death: A Practical and Spiritual Guide (New York: Doubleday, 1989).
T. P. Kasulis, Zen Action/Zen Person (Honolulu: U. of Hawaii Press, 1981, 1985) ("Accepting the possibility of a philosophical study of Zen Buddhism, we must ask how such a study should be structured. The focus in this book is on the Zen Buddhist view of the person." Id. at x. "[T]he first of the two strands of the Zen doctrine of nothingness: the mistrust of conceptualization." Id. at 16. "Now let us examine how the person is understood in Zen." "Like the modern Western personalists, Zen maintains that no characterization of the person ever captures its full reality: a description only highlights one aspect to the exclusion of others. Yet, unlike the personalists, the Zen tradition does not limit this principle to persons: any characterization of anything falls short in the same way. For Zen, this restriction is more important when it concerns the person only because human beings can delude themselves by identifying with particular descriptions. Dogs do not think of themselves as collies, spaniels, or even as dogs. Only humans reduce themselves to communists or capitalists, blacks or whites, centers of self-consciousness or of stimulus-response, disciples or Zen Masters. These categories are not intrinsically dangerous as long as one remembers them to be relative--that is, limited to specified perspectives. Once one starts to understand oneself or others as equivalent to these categories, however, one is closed to experiencing in ways inconsistent with the image. This is what Zen Buddhism considers the attachment to conceptualization. If one understands the relatively at the heart of all distinctions consistency is not an exclude for dogmatism. . . ." Id. at 25-26. "[T]he second strand: nothingness as a source." Id. at 29. From the backcover: "Of the many books on Zen Buddhism, Zen Action/Zen Person is the first by a professional American philosopher with training in East Asian languages, Zen practice, and the full range of Asian philosophies preceding the development of Japanese Zen Buddhism. This book is also the first thorough investigation of the intimate relationship between Zen doctrine and Zen practice. For many readers, Kasulis' work will clarify some of the key terms left obscure in the pioneering works of such writers as D. T. Suzuki and Alan Watts.").
Jakusho Kwong, No Beginning, No End: The Intimate Heart of Zen, edited by Peter Levitt, with a Foreword by Thich Nhat Hanh (Boston: Shambhala, 2010).
Muso Kokushi, Dream Conversations: On Buddhism and Zen, translated and edited by Thomas Cleary (Boston & London: Shambhala, 1996) ("The central benefit of Zen, in the context of the ordinary ups and downs of life, is not in preventing the minus and promoting the plus but in directing people to the fundamental reality that is not under the sway of ups and downs." Id. at 5.).
Taizan Maezumi, Appreciate Your Life: The Essence of Zen Practice (Shambhala Classics), edited by Wendy Egyoku Nakao & Eve Myonen Marko, with a foreword by Bernie Glassman (Boston & London, 2002) (From the backcover: Here is the first major collection of the teachings of Taizan Maezumi Roshi (1931-1995), one of the first Japanese Zen masters to bring Zen to the West and founding abbot of the Zen Center of Los Angeles and Zen Mountain Center in Idyllwild, California. These short, inspiring readings illuminate Zen practice in simple, eloquent language. Topics include zazen and Zen koans, how to appreciate life as the life of the Buddha, and the essential matter of life and death.").
Taizan Maezumi & Bernie Glassman, The Hazy Moon of Enlightenment, rev'd & expanded ed., edited by Wendy Egyoku Nakao & John Daidhin Buksbazen, with a foreword by Chogyam Trungpa (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2002).
Taizan Maezumi & Bernie Glassman, eds., On Zen Practice: Body, Breath, and Mind, revised by Wendy Egyoku Nakao & John Daidhin Buksbazen, with a foreword by Robert Aitken (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2007).
Thomas Merton, Mystics and Zen Masters (New York: Noonday Press, 1967) ("What I intend to question is simply the idea that Zen meditation is simply a rest in individual 'essence' which abolishes all need for and interest in external and historical reality, or destiny of man." Id. at 7. "[I]t is quite false to imagine that Zen is a sort of individualistic, subjective purity in which the monk seeks to rest and find spiritual refreshment by the discovery and enjoyment of his own interiority. It is not a subtle form of spiritual self-gratification, a repose in the depths of one's own inner silence, Nor is it by any means a simple withdrawal from the outer world of matter to an inner world of spirit. The first and most elementary fact about Zen is its abhorrence of this dualistic division between matter and spirit. Any criticism of Zen that presupposes such a division is, therefore, bound to go astray." Id. at 13.).
Paul Reps & Nyogen Senzaki, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-ZenWritings (Shambhala Pocket Classics) (Boston & London: Shambhala, 1994) (From the backcover: "Included here are four Zen and pre-Zen classics: 101 Zen Stories--anecdotes and enlightenment stories of the great masters; The Gateless Gate--forty-eight Zen koans to awaken the enlightened mind; The 10 Bulls, or 'Ox-herding Pictures--depicting the ten stages of awareness; and Centering--a four-thousand-year-od Sanskrit text that may well be one of the roots of Zen thought." From 101 Zen Stories: "A student of Tendai, a philosophical school of Buddhism, came to the Zen abode of Gasan as a pupil. When he was departing a few years later, Gasan warned him: 'Studying the truth speculatively is useful as a way of collecting preaching materials. But remember that unless you meditate constantly your light of truth may go out.'" Id. at 86. From The Gateless Gate, by Ekai: "Do not fight with another's bow and arrow. / Do not ride another's horse. / Do not discuss another's faults. / Do not interfere with another's work." Id. at 45.).
Grace Schireson, Zen Women: Beyond Tea Ladies, Iron Maidens, and Macho Masters, with a foreword by Miriam Levering (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2009).
Elihu Genmyo Smith, Everything Is the Way: Ordinary Mind Zen (Boston & London: Shambhala, 2012) ("Sitting is a natural slowing down of this rushing, self-centered, mind-body chattering that we often live. This is the practice of realization, which is what we are, and this practice allows us to be who we are. As we practice, we discover who and what we are. This is the process of sitting whether for one period or for many years." Id. at 3. "Practice is the moment of choice, life is the moment of choice. Giving self to practice, this is a moment of choice. Giving charity of speech, charity of eyes, charity of mouth, charity of mind, charity of functioning. Do you give choice? Only by being awareness in this moment arising-passing. There is never anything but this arising. Arising is awareness." "Practice is not a means to an end: it is the means and the end wrapped up together. Awareness is this functioning life." Id. at 60. "To paraphrase Dogen, practice and experience are not nonexistent; they are the brightness being tainted. This is the whole of our life. Practice is always exactly where you are. It is important to know that exactly where you are is the whole of this brightness. Yet this requires practice; it requires ongoing exertion, including seeing where you are refusing to be brightness. Doing so right here in the midst of our ordinary functioning, right here the brightness reveals itself, right here the brightness reveal our self." Id. at 178. "In the Zen tradition, we celebrate Buddha's enlightenment on December 8. In some Buddhist traditions, it is celebrated in the spring at Wesak. Every morning you can celebrate this enlightenment, because every morning is attaining, encountering, embracing, and being intimacy--the life that we are." Id. at 236. From the backcover: "These days, when Zen has become a kind of shorthand for anything that's enigmatic or aesthetically spare, it's refreshing to be reminded that Zen is at heart a practice for waking up form the dream we inhabit--in order to free ourselves from the suffering the dream imposes on us. Elihu Genmyo Smith's eminently practical Zen teaching never loses sight of that central concern: Whether it takes the form of zazen (meditation), koan work, or just eating your breakfast, the aim of Zen practice is always nothing other than intimacy with ourselves and everything around us.").
Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, The Zen Doctrine of No Mind: The Significance of the Sutra of Hui-neng (Wei-lang), edited by Christmas Humphreys (New York: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1949, 1972) (From the backcover: "Zen Buddhism is unique in the field of religion, being the only school which strives, with no reliance on scriptures or Saviour of any kind, to 'break through' to the beyond of thought, and to achieve a state of consciousness beyond duality." "One of the most famous Zen master was Hui-neng (638-713) and this work is largely concerned with his teaching. But it covers the whole purpose and technique of Zen training, and in the view of many goes further into the deeps of Zen than any other work of modern times.").
Alan Watts, The Way of Zen (Vintage Spiritual Classics/ Vintage Books, 1957, 1989) ("Our problem is that the power of thought enables us to construct symbols of things apart from the things themselves. This includes the ability to make a symbol, an idea of ourselves apart from ourselves. Because the idea is so much more comprehensible than the reality, the symbol so much more stable than the fact, we learn to identify ourselves with our idea of ourselves. Hence the subjective feeling of a 'self' which 'has' a mind, of an inwardly isolated subject to whom experiences involuntarily happen. With its characteristic emphasis on the concrete, Zen points out that our precious 'self' is just an idea, useful and legitimate enough if seen for what it is, but disastrous if identified with our real nature. The unnatural awkwardness of a certain type of self-consciousness comes into being when we are aware of conflict or contrast between the idea of ourselves, on the one hand, and the immediate, concrete feeling of ourselves, on the other." Id. at 119-120. "Man's identification with his idea of himself gives him a specious and precarious sense of permanence. For this idea is relatively fixed, being based upon carefully selected memories of his past, memories which have a preserved and fixed character. Social convention encourages the fixity of the idea because the very usefulness of symbols depends upon their stability. Convention therefore encourages him to associate his idea of himself with equally abstract and symbolic roles and stereotypes, since these will help him to form an idea of himself which will be definite and intelligible. But to the degree that he identifies himself with the fixed idea, he becomes aware of 'life' as something which flows past him-faster and faster as he grows older, as his idea become more rigid, more bolstered with memories. The more he attempts to clutch the world, the more he feels it as a process in motion." Id. at 122. "There is a saying in Zen that 'original realization is marvelous practice' (Japanese, honsho myoshu). The meaning is that no distinction is to be made between the realization of awakening (satori) and the cultivation of Zen in meditation and action. Whereas it might be supposed that the practice of Zen is a means to the end of awakening, this is not so. For the practice of Zen is not the true practice so long as it has an end in view, and when it has no end in view it is awakening--the aimless, self-sufficient life of the 'eternal now.' To practice with an end in view is to have one eye on the practice and the other on the end, which is lack of concentration, lack of sincerity. To put it in another way: one does not practice Zen to become a Buddha; one practices it because one is a Buddha from the beginning--and this 'original realization' is the starting point of the Zen life. Original realization is the 'body' (t'i) and the marvelous practice the 'use' (yung), and the two correspond respectively to prajna, wisdom, and karuna the compassionate activity of the awakened Bodhisattva in the world of birth-and-death." Id. at 154.).
