The teachings of the groundbreaking Buddhist Zen Master: "Should remain for years to come the standard source book for the Western student of Zen" (Douglas Harding, The Middle Way).The eccentric Bankei (1622–1693) has long been an underground hero in the world of Zen. At a time when Zen was becoming overly formalized in Japan, he stressed its relevance to everyday life, insisting on the importance of naturalness and spontaneity. This volume presents his te...

Sokei-an translated the Record of Lin-chi (Lin-chi lu) from 1931 to 1933, in his first series of lectures. He felt that Americans needed original Chinese Zen source materials, translated and commented upon by a Zen master, and there were no such materials in those early days. Sokei-an was the first Zen master to translate the Record of Lin-chi and to give a commentary in English to Western students. The real historic value of Sokei-ans Lin-chi is in his commentary with its manifestation of...

A lively collection of folk tales and Buddhist teaching stories from four noted premodern Japanese Zen masters: Taigu Sôchiku (1584–1669), Sengai Gibon (1750-1831), Hakuin Ekaku (1686-1769), and Taigu Ryôkan (1758-1831).Zen Master Tales collects never before translated stories of four prominent Zen masters from the Edo period of Japanese history (1603-1868). Drawn from an era that saw the “democratization” of Japanese Zen, these stories paint a picture of ...

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 valle...

This history of Japanese philosophical traditions underscores the importance of Zen and Shinto to the development of Japanese culture.How do the Japanese talk about their native philosophy, Shinto, so many years after the Western Allies abolished it as a state religion? What is its relationship to Buddhism, and particularly to Zen? How modern can this very ancient creed ever be? These are some of the questions considered in this analytic work by Dr. Chikao Fujisawa,...

"A brilliant work . . . A dazzling meditation on the very nature of language itself" from the world-renowned scholar and author of The Poetry of Thought ( Kirkus Reviews).In his classic work, literary critic and scholar George Steiner tackles what he considers the Babel "problem": Why, over the course of history, have humans developed thousands of different languages when the social, material, and economic advantages of a single tongue are obvious?...

From the editors of Zen Poems of China and Japan comes the largest and most comprehensive collection of its kind to appear in English.This collaboration between a Japanese scholar and an American poet has rendered translations both precise and sublime, and their selections, which span fifteen hundred years—from the early T'ang dynasty to the present day—include many poems that have never before been translated into English. Stryk and Ikemoto offer us Zen p...

This complete collection of teachings by the 9th century Zen Master has been an essential text in the study of Zen for centuries—now available in English.This translation of the original collection of sermons, dialogues, and anecdotes of Huang Po, the illustrious Chinese master of the Tang Dynasty, allows the Western reader to gain an understanding of Zen from the original source, one of the key works in its teachings. It also offers deep and often startling insight...

The classic guide for Zen students pursuing the true way."Somebody comes into the Zen center with a lighted cigarette, walks up to the Buddha-statue, blows smoke in its face and drops ashes on its lap. You are standing there. What can you do?" This is a problem that Zen Master Seung Sahn was fond of posing to his American students who attended his Zen centers.Dropping Ashes on the Buddha is a delightful, irreverent, and often hilariously funny livi...

For readers of Michio Kaku and Stephen Hawking, the book readers have acclaimed as "A mega-comprehensive outlook at intelligence as convincing as it is surprising" and "A truly breathtaking forecast on the future of intelligence."With the ongoing advancement of AI and other technologies, our world is becoming increasingly intelligent. From chatbots to innovations in brain-computer interfaces to the possibility of superintelligences leading to the Singularity later ...

It’s not your father’s Ireland. Not anymore. A story of modern revolution in Ireland told by the founder of IrishCentral, Irish America magazine, and the Irish Voice newspaper.In a May 2019 countrywide referendum, Ireland voted overwhelmingly to make abortion legal; three years earlier, it had done the same with same-sex marriage, becoming the only country in the world to pass such a law by universal suffrage. Pope Francis’s visit to the ...

With a focus of the Perseverance rover mission, here is the "Quintessential account of one of humanity’s most intriguing quests" (Pail Halpern, Medium), "A remarkable, timely, and up-to-date account of Mars exploration" (Leonard David, "Space Insider," Space.com).From The War of the Worlds to The Martian and to the amazing photographs sent back by the robotic rovers Curiosity and Opportunity, Mars has excited our imaginations as ...