HOME > Zen Masters of China The First Step East

Zen Masters of China

The First Step East

Zen Masters of China
enlarge

Author Richard Bryan McDaniel
Foreword Albert Low
Price JPY 2,310
ISBN 978-0-8048-4282-2
Format 140×279mm 320pages
Availability Out-of-print
  • click to purchase

    We don't sell this title for the individual directly.
    Please visit bookshops.

Description

Zen Masters in China presents more than 300 traditional Zen stories and koans, far more than any other collection. Retelling them in their proper place in Zen's historical journey, it also tells a larger story: how, in taking the first step east from India to China, Buddhism began to be Zen. The stories of Zen are unlike any other writing, religious or otherwise. Used for centuries by Zen teachers as aids to bring about or deepen the experience of awakening, they have a freshness that goes beyond religious practice and a mystery and authenticity that appeal to a wide range of readers. Placed in chronological order, these stories tell the story of Zen itself, how it traveled from West to East but also how it was transformed in that journey, from an Indian practice to something different in China (Ch'an) and then more different still in Japan (Zen). The fact that its transmission was so human, from teacher to student in a long chain from West to East, meant that the cultures it passed through inevitably changed it. Zen Masters of China is first and foremost a collection of mind-bending Zen stories and their wisdom. More than that, without academic pretensions or baggage, it recounts the genealogy of Zen Buddhism in China and, through the stories themselves, illuminates how Zen became what it is today.

* cover price / excluding tax