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How American Buddhists use Zen riddles to imagine who they are The koan is one of the most recognizable East-Asian spiritual exercises—a thought experiment in the form of a riddle or puzzle that Zen Buddhists employ to become enlightened. Well-known examples include the question “What is the sound of one hand clapping?,”'Does a dog have Buddha-nature?,'and the injunction “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” In American Koan, Ben Van Overmeire examines the literary function of these ancient dialogues in autobiographies of modern Western writers such as Natalie Goldberg, Peter Matthiessen, Philip Kapleau, Ruth Ozeki, and others. Through his attentive analyses of these authors, Van Overmeire unveils the rich world of American Zen literature and delves into the meaning of success and failure in Zen; how women find a place in this patriarchal tradition; how to combine Zen insight with compassion; and the illusory nature of linear time. Critical yet empathetic, this is a scintillating study of how Americans become Buddhas.

A once-in-a-generation translation of the definitive Ch'an (Zen) koan collection from preeminent translator David Hinton.The Blue-Cliff Record, a collection of Ch'an (Zen) koans stemming from the eleventh century, is a remarkable masterwork of classical Chinese literature, a philosophical text of profound power, and an active practice guide in use by Ch'an and Zen Buddhists all over the world. Rendered with his trademark lyricism and philosophical rigor, this new edition from renowned translator David Hinton presents a whole new Blue-Cliff Record. Full of poetry, storytelling, and characters both zany and profound, Hinton's translation unveils the earthy insights of Ch'an's original wisdom.Though it carries a reputation for impenetrable paradox, The Blue-Cliff Record was not meant to be a teaching tool understood only through long instruction from Zen masters. Rather, it is a finely crafted text intended to create a direct and immediate experience of awakening, a text that insists on the need to trust oneself rather than teachers for insight. Embracing this, Hinton's translation presents only the original koans and poems, free of the commentaries that usually shroud it. In doing so, he rekindles the provocative and illuminating fire of these one hundred classic koans.

PubWest 2023 Book Design Award (Silver)At a time of climate emergency, Zen koans show us how crisis itself can reveal the regenerative openness of life, mind, and being.Zen koans are a tradition of holistic inquiry based on “encounter stories” from East Asia's most radical Buddhist tradition. Turning this form of inquiry toward the climate crisis, Susan Murphy contends that koans can help us enter the mind of not-knowing, from which acceptance and possibility freely emerge. Koans reveal intimate, mythic, artful, playful, provocative, humorous, and fierce ways to engage the work of protecting and healing our world.The koans point firstly at ourselves—at the very nature of'self.'Until we hold “self” as a live question rather than its own unquestioned answer, we're stuck looking on from the “outside,” hoping to engineer change upon a problem called “climate crisis,” all the time oblivious to the fact that we're swimming in a reality with no outside to it, an ocean of transformative energy. Do we dare relinquish our wish for absolute control and fearlessly surf the intensity of our feelings about the suffering earth?In addition to her use of dozens of traditional and new koans, Murphy illuminates the little-known Zen resonance with the oldest continuous body of indigenous wisdom on earth, summed up in the subtle Australian Aboriginal word Country. Murphy draws from her study and coteaching with Uncle Max (Dulumunmun) Harrison, a distinguished Yuin Elder, to show how this millennia-deep taproot of intelligence confirms the aliveness of the earth and the kinship of all beings.

Nautilus Book Award Winner An intimate spiritual and literary journey exploring how Zen koans make us permeable to the joys and the anguish of this life—and to the primordial mystery we glimpse behind the veil of the everyday. In Through Forests of Every Color, renowned Zen teacher Joan Sutherland reimagines the koan tradition with allegiance to the root spirit of the koans and to their profound potential for vivifying, subverting, and sanctifying our lives. Her decades of practicing with koans and of translating them from classical Chinese imbues this text with a warm familiarity, an ease still suffused with awe. Interlinked essays on “koans as art,” “keeping company with koans,” and “walking the koan way” intersperse with beautifully translated renditions of dozens of traditional Zen koans. Sutherland also shares innovative koans culled from Western literature, as well as teachings on how to create idiosyncratic koans or'turning words'from the circumstances of one's own life. “First honored is your yearning, the preparation made on faith that there is something that will receive you if you make yourself ready,” writes Sutherland of the koan seeker. “Bathed—attended to, washed free of complications—and then aspiring to the deepest kind of beauty—receptive, brave, dedicated, openhearted. Already you've begun to look like the thing you're looking for.”

A fresh translation and commentary on a classic collection of 100 koans from thirteenth-century China.The Record of Empty Hall was written by Xutang Zhiyu (1185-1269), an important figure in Chinese Linji Chan (Japanese Rinzai Zen) Buddhism and in its transmission to Japan. Although previously little-known in the West, Xutang's work is on par with the other great koan collections of the era, such as The Blue Cliff Record and Book of Serenity.Translated by Zen teacher Dosho Port from the original Chinese, The Record of Empty Hall opens new paths into the earthiness, humor, mystery, and multiplicity of meaning that are at the heart of koan inquiry. Inspired by the pithy, frank tone of Xutang's originals, Port also offers his own commentaries on the koans, helping readers to see the modern and relatable applications of these thirteenth-century encounter stories. Readers familiar with koans will recognize key figures, such as Bodhidharma, Nanquan, and Zhaozhou and will also be introduced to teaching icons not found in other koan collections. Through his commentaries, as well as a glossary of major figures and an appendix detailing the cases, Port not only opens up these remarkable koans but also illuminates their place in ancient Chinese, Japanese, and contemporary Zen practice.

'These two extraordinary Zen Teachers offer a cutting-edge immersion into the koans of our actual lives, issue by issue, urging us to plunge in, and be intimate with what actually is, in this very moment. Flowing beneath the surface of these contemporary koans is an ocean of traditional koans and old Buddhist stories and themes, all intermingled with the immediacy of contemporary life. A guaranteed American Zen classic!'—Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara, author of Most Intimate: A Zen Approach to Life's Challenges'Radical, useful, and wild, this rich collection of householder koans opens a treasure house of wisdom for all. What a wonderful adventure in the practical mind and heart of true Zen and true life.'—Rev. Joan Jiko Halifax, Abbot of Upaya Zen Center “In The Book of Householder Koans Nakao and Marko wonderfully carry into contemporary life the spirit and color of the zen koan tradition in all its mystery and brazenness—and, at the same time, provide a wonderfully wise, knowing, and light-hearted look at how we can live this one precious unrepeatable human life in beauty. The koan stories they provide (submitted by many of their students) are pithy, funny, and perfectly apt for the times we live in. What a lively book!” —Norman Fischer, poet, Zen priest, and author most recently of The World Could Be Otherwise: Imagination and the Bodhisattva Path “I was blown away by the force of The Book of Householder Koans as it establishes Western Zen as a new center of enlightenment. Roshis Myonen Eve Marko and Egyoku Wendy Nakao present Zen koans, exquisitely digested from everyday life, that retain the ancient and authentic power to stop you in your tracks while they beckon you onward. Read this book, emerging from two female Zen masters'lifetimes of practice, and enter an intimate world that opens your awareness in relationship, work, and current worldly puzzles.” —Grace Schireson, author of Wild-Ass Zen, Enlightenment Wherever You Are, Zen Women: Beyond Tea Ladies, Iron Maidens and Macho Maters, and Naked in the Zendo: Stories of Uptight Zen, and editor of Zen Bridge: The Zen Teachings of Keido Fukushima “In this wonderful collection, Eve Myonen Marko and Wendy Egyoku Nakao write that Zen is about letting go of our fixed opinions. One opinion about Zen, when it came to this country, is that it is for monks and priests who live in monasteries or as hermits. In fact, most Zen students nowadays are householders who have issues that are different from those of our ancestor monks in China. The training for priests cannot be the same as the training for householders. Householders'lives are messy. Roshis Eve and Wendy use the ancient wisdom of Zen to illuminate modern-day practice. Their insight and compassion have provided us with an important collection of koan stories that illustrate how Zen can bring deep insight to all meditators, whether householders, the homeless, women, men, or even ordained priests.” —Roshi Gerry Shishin Wick, spiritual director of Great Mountain Zen Center, and author of The Book of Equanimity: Illuminating Classic Zen Koans “The only real Zen is the Zen of our actual lived lives. Zen's koans are stories that take us to where we really live, that show us who we are when we let go of the false stories we've been trapped within. The collections of these true stories, which open our hearts, started in China. And China gave us many that we cherish to this day. Others come from Korea and Vietnam and Japan. And now, in The Book of Householder Koans, we are given a selection collected from four Western countries by two preeminent American Zen masters. And this is real Zen. These are the true stories of who we have always been from before the creation of the stars and planets. This is Zen made out of our bones and marrow, our tears and laughter. This amazing book is one of a handful

Zen and the Gospel of Thomas illuminates sacred, mysterious wisdom from two traditions, revealing how these profound teachings apply to our everyday life and spiritual practice.Imagine that the Buddha asked Jesus to write a text for a Zen audience that would explain his take on the mysteries of his Kingdom. Imagine also that Jesus chose to present it in a set of short koanlike sayings similar to the classic koan collections of the Zen tradition. This is, in essence, the gnostic Gospel of Thomas. A Zen reading of Thomas allows us to access the living Jesus through Buddhist eyes so we can add to and refine our own practice with his wisdom. Likewise, Thomas can be a gateway for Christians to make use of Zen. Like the Buddha, this Jesus of Thomas wishes us to realize, individually and personally, the truth of the eternal. He offers teachings for the whole of our lives, dealing with such topics as: the proper use of money; how to foster wisdom and insight; the nature of awakening and non-attachment; love and judgment; how to rest in the essential; and the nature of what it means to be an enlightened person. Like koans, the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas ask each of us to discover the same secrets of mystery that Jesus himself discovered and to live out that knowledge in our own unique way.

Who am I? Am I this human body that is born and dies? Or am I something else? Although we cannot truly know the answer to such questions, we can be guided on a path that will eventually lead us home, to whomever and whatever we really are. Koans are a means to discover this path. Koans have been used in Zen practice for hundreds of years, to stoke the mind and test the development of Buddhist students. Often counterintuitive in order to challenge our established patterns of thought, koans are teachers, messengers and, above all, powerful portals to experiences that transcend any intellectual enquiry, logic or reason. Garry Bannister presents readers with the first comprehensive translation of Zen koans in both English and Irish, and provides an intriguing investigation into the hidden messages of these foundational texts in the study of Zen Buddhism. As Alan Titley writes in his illuminating foreword,'Garry Bannister's readings are ingenious, provocative, particular and always insightful.'Cé mise? An mise an cholainn dhaonna seo a rugadh, a éiríonn sean, tinn agus a fhaigheann bás? An mise é seo? Nó an mise, b'fhéidir, rud éigin eile? Cé nach féidir freagraí a sholáthar do cheisteanna dá leithéid, is féidir treorú a fháil i gcomhair aistir phearsanta. Is teagascóirí, teachtairí, agus níos mó ná aon rud eile, is tairseacha teanntásacha iad na cóáin a tharchéimníonn aon fhiosrú intleachtach, loighic nó limistéir theoranta an réasúin. Tugtar tráchtaireachtaí mar aon le gluaiseanna cuimsitheacha sa bhailiúchán álainn seo de 41 chóán ar shaíocht agus dhúrúin na gcóán Zen mar a dhearbhaíonn Alan Titley ina réamhrá don leabhar seo:'Tá an léamh a dhéanann Garry Bannister ar na cóáin seo istigh íogair, éagsúil, samhlaitheach, uathúil ach léaspairteach gan stad.'

An indispensible guide to koans, teaching the reader about the importance of lineage, the practice of “just sitting,” and koan practice as paths to awakening.“This marvelous book opens the treasure house of Zen and yet, happily, does not dispel its mystery. James Ford, an excellent storyteller and longtime Zen practitioner, presents a detailed and beautiful description of the craft of zazen, including “just sitting” and various forms of breath meditation—but focuses primarily on koan introspection. The power of koans, these'public cases'from China, has never ceased to enrich my own experience of Zen. They are a medium of exploration of the history, culture, and view of Zen, but most importantly are a medium of awakening. James Ford is fundamentally a koan person, and for this, the book is particularly rich, opening the practice of koans in a splendid way. I am grateful for his long experience as a teacher and practitioner of this rare and powerful practice. Since the word koan has found its way into popular English usage, I am grateful too for the more nuanced and fertile view of koans that Ford presents. His definition of the word is telling: “a koan points to something of deep importance, and invites us to stand in that place.” He has also has created a wonderful translation of the Heart Sutra, Zen's central scripture—and carefully opens up the heart of the Heart Sutra through scholarship and practice. Rich in textual sources and woven throughout with the perspectives of contemporary teachers, Introduction to Zen Koans sheds new light on ancient teachings. Through it, the reader will discover the importance of lineage, the traceless traces of the Zen ancestors, and the places of “just sitting” and koan practice as paths to awakening, as the great doorways into Zen.” —from the foreword by Joan Halifax

Discover how the mysterious, powerful form of the koan—known for bringing about sudden enlightenment—can disrupt and illuminate your everyday understanding of life.Traditionally, Zen koans—the teaching stories of Zen—are drawn from the words and teachings of ancient masters and primarily address the concerns of (male) monastic practitioners. In The Crow Flies Backward, Ross Bolleter changes all at. The 108 modern koans offered within address sexuality and childbirth, family, parenthood, work, money and even the nature time itself. These koans are drawn from a variety of modern sources: Western philosophy, the Bible, contemporary and classic literature from Proust to Lewis Carroll and Mary Oliver and Anne Carson, as well as stories provided by author's encounters with his Zen students. Bolleter's commentaries provide guidance to the reader on how to engage with each koan and koans in general, and direct guidance to meditate with koans. An appendix offers rarely-seen intimate and in-depth accounts of the process of koan introspection, from four of the author's senior students.

This book provides an in-depth textual and literary analysis of the Blue Cliff Record (Chinese Biyanlu, Japanese Hekiganroku), a seminal Chan/Zen Buddhist collection of commentaries on one hundred gongan/koan cases, considered in light of historical, cultural, and intellectual trends from the Song dynasty (960-1279). Compiled by the disciples of Yuanwu Keqin in 1128, the Blue Cliff Record is considered a classic of East Asian literature for its creative integration of prose and verse as well as hybrid or capping-phrase interpretations of perplexing cases.The collection employs a variety of rhetorical devices culled from both classic and vernacular literary sources and styles and is particularly notable for its use of indirection, allusiveness, irony, paradox, and wordplay, all characteristic of the approach of literary or lettered Chan. However, as instrumental and influential as it is considered to be, the Blue Cliff Record has long been shrouded in controversy. The collection is probably best known today for having been destroyed in the 1130s at the dawn of the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279) by Dahui Zonggao, Yuanwu's main disciple and harshest critic. It was out of circulation for nearly two centuries before being revived and partially reconstructed in the early 1300s. In this book, Steven Heine examines the diverse ideological connections and disconnections behind subsequent commentaries and translations of the Blue Cliff Record, thereby shedding light on the broad range of gongan literature produced in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries and beyond.

Jodo's interpretations of the stories and koans of Zen master Ejo Takata • Offers more than 60 Zen teaching tales, initiatory stories, koans, and haikus for self-realization and spiritual awakening • Each story or koan is accompanied by the author's lucid and penetrating commentary, blending the same burlesque slapstick and sublime insight that characterize his films • Explains how one must see beyond the words of the story to grasp the spiritual insights they contain Before he became the film maker and graphic novel author known throughout the world today, Alejandro Jodorowsky studied with Zen master Ejo Takata in Mexico City. In The Finger and the Moon, Jodorowsky recounts how he became Takata's student and offers his interpretations of the teaching tales, initiatory stories, koans, and enigmatic haikus he learned at the feet of his great and humble teacher. Blending the same burlesque slapstick and sublime insight that characterize his films such as El Topo and The Holy Mountain, each story is accompanied by the author's lucid and penetrating commentary, as well as insights from ancient Zen teachers. Yet their most significant gift to the reader is the sudden shock of realization they impart that can lead to spiritual awakening. Jodorowsky notes that most people are incapable of self-realization because of their fear of the void within, an emptiness they seek to fill with noise and chatter. He shows that Zen teachings can be compared to a finger pointing at the moon, directing you to awaken to your true nature--the Buddha within. The danger lies in mistaking the pointing finger for the moon, mistaking the words for the essential enlightenment, which can only be grasped once words have been surpassed. Unlike most tales, these stories are intended to evoke silent illumination--as true awakening and self-realization cannot occur until the mind has been stilled.

Zen koans are stories of exchanges between Zen masters and their disciples at the moment of enlightenment or near-enlightenment. These stories have long fascinated Western readers because of their wisdom, humor, and enigmatic quality. Drawing on over thirty years of practice and teaching, Richard Shrobe (himself a recognized Zen Master) has selected twenty-two cases from The Blue Cliff Record, Book of Serenity, and Wu-men-kuan that he has found to be deeply meaningful and helpful for meditation practice. In Elegant Failure, he provides a wealth of background information and personal anecdotes for each koan that help to illuminate its meaning without detracting from its paradoxical nature. As Shrobe reminds us,'The main core of Zen teaching is the bare bones of what is there. In a certain sense, embellishing a story takes away from the central teaching: Don't embellish anything, just be with it as it is.'

The Story of Mu uses luminous illustrations and a mythic narrative structure to convey the great potential for peace and enlightenment that we all carry hidden within ourselves. Shot through with ineffable “thisness and thussness,” Mu spins a visually rich, cosmogonic fable about the origins of the universe of space, time, matter, and life. It also touches something lost but always present within the human heart: an awakeness that is without flaw, from the beginning before the beginning.

“What is the sound of one hand clapping?” “Does a dog have Buddha-nature?” These cryptic expressions are among the best-known examples of koans, the confusing, often contradictory sayings that form the centerpiece of Zen Buddhist learning and training. Viewed as an ideal method for attaining and transmitting an unimpeded experience of enlightenment, they became the main object of study in Zen meditation, where their contemplation was meant to exhaust the capacity of the rational mind and the expressiveness of speech. Koan compilations, which include elegant poetic and eloquent prose commentaries on cryptic dialogues, are part of a great literary tradition in China, Japan, and Korea that appealed to intellectuals who sought spiritual fulfillment through interpreting elaborate rhetoric related to mysterious metaphysical exchanges.In this compact volume, Steven Heine, who has written extensively on Zen Buddhism and koans, introduces and analyzes the classic background of texts and rites and explores the contemporary significance of koans to illuminate the full implications of this ongoing tradition. He delves deeply into the inner structure of koan literature to uncover and interpret profound levels of metaphorical significance. At the same time, he takes the reader beyond the veil of vagueness and inscrutability to an understanding of how koan writings have been used in pre-modern East Asia and are coming to be evoked and implemented in modern American practice of Zen. By focusing on two main facets of the religious themes expressed in koan records—individual religious attainment and the role dialogues play in maintaining order in the monastic system—Zen Koans reveals the distinct yet interlocking levels of meaning reflected in different koan case records and helps make sense of the seemingly nonsensical. It is a book for anyone interested in untangling the web of words used in Zen exchanges and exploring their important place in the vast creative wellspring of East Asian religion and culture.

All readers, both novice and longtime practitioners, will encounter in this book new answers, and new questions, to the what, why and how of Zen practice. We've all had moments in our lives when we've thought,'Something is missing. There must be more to life than this.'It is this sense that often brings people to the practice of Zen. By turning to Zen, they acknowledge that this'something'lies not in externals, but rather in seeking to transcend desire and attachment. The journey toward that transcendence begins with questioning, and questions will be part of the path until awakening is attained.In What More do You Want? a fascinating new book by renowned Zen master Albert Low, he addresses some of the questions students have posed about the practice of Zen: Why do we practice? Why should we seek to understand our reasons for practicing? How can we distinguish between true and false practice? What is awakening? In addition, Low shares with his readers four teishos--talks that comment on a text or koan in order to enhance meditation practice--on zazen or seated meditation, on pain and suffering, and on the very nature of practice itself. Finally, Low shares with readers an experience of satori, a glimpse into Buddha nature.

In this inspiring and incisive offering, Barry Magid uses the language of modern psychology and psychotherapy to illuminate one of Buddhism's most powerful and often mysterious technologies: the Zen koan. What's more, Magid also uses the koans to expand upon the insights of psychology (especially self psychology and relational psychotherapy) and open for the reader new perspectives on the functioning of the human mind and heart. Nothing Is Hidden explores many rich themes, including facing impermanence and the inevitability of change, working skillfully with desire and attachment, and discovering when'surrender and submission'can be liberating and when they shade into emotional bypassing. With a sophisticated view of the rituals and teachings of traditional Buddhism, Magid helps us see how we sometimes subvert meditation into just another'curative fantasy'or make compassion into a form of masochism.

Entangling Vines is a translation of the Shumon Kattoshu, the only major koan text to have been compiled in Japan rather than China. Most of the central koans of the contemporary Rinzai koan curriculum are contained in this work. Indeed, Kajitani Sonin (1914–1995)—former chief abbot of Shokoku-ji and author of an annotated, modern-Japanese translation of the Kattoshu—commented that “herein are compiled the basic Dharma materials of the koan system.” A distinctive feature of Entangling Vines is that, unlike the Gateless Gate and Blue Cliff Record, it presents the koans “bare,” with no introductions, commentaries, or verses. The straightforward structure of its presentation lends the koans added force and immediacy, emphasizing the Great Matter, the essential point to be interrogated, while providing ample material for the rigors of examining and refining Zen experience. Containing 272 cases and extensive annotation, the collection is not only indispensable for serious koan training but also forms an excellent introduction to Buddhist philosophy.

Koans are dialogues that stand at the center of Zen Buddhist literature and are often used to provoke the'great doubt'in testing a trainee's progress. The Mu Koan consists of a brief conversation in which a monk asks Master Zhaozhou whether or not a dog has Buddha-nature. According to the main version, the reply is'Mu': literally,'No,'but implying the philosophical notion of nothingness. This case is widely considered to be the single best- known and most widely circulated koan record of the Zen school that offers existential release from anxiety to attain spiritual illumination. In a careful analysis of the historical and rhetorical basis of the literature, Steven Heine demonstrates that the Mu version of the case, preferred by advocates of the key-phrase approach, does not by any means constitute the final word concerning the meaning and significance of the Mu Koan. He shows that another canonical version, which gives both'Yes'and'No'responses, must be taken into account. Like Cats and Dogs offers critical insight and a new theoretical perspective on'the koan of koans.'

The word'mu'is one ancient Zen teacher's response to the earnest question of whether even a dog has'buddha nature'. Discovering for ourselves the meaning of the master's response is the urgent work of each of us who yearns to be free and at peace.'Practicing Mu'is synonymous with practicing Zen,'sitting with Mu'is an apt description for all Zen meditation, and it is said that all the thousands and thousands of koans in the Zen tradition are just further elaborations of Mu. This watershed volume brings together over forty teachers, ancient and modern masters from across centuries and schools, to illuminate and clarify the essential matter: the question of how to be most truly ourselves. Includes writings from: Dogen, Hakuin, Dahui, Thich Thien-An Zenkei Shibayama, Seung Sahn, Taizan Maezumi, Sheng Yen Philip Kapleau, Robert Aitken, Jan Chozen Bays, Shodo Harada Grace Schireson, John Daido Loori, John Tarrant Barry Magid, Joan Sutherland, and many more!