Zen Masters of Japan: The Second Step East

Zen Masters of Japan: The Second Step East

Language: English

Pages: 288

ISBN: 0804847975

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


Zen Masters of Japan is the second book in a series that traces Zen's profoundly historic journey as it spread eastward from China and Japan, toward the United States. Following Zen Masters of China, this book concentrates on Zen's significant passage through Japan. More specifically, it describes the lineage of the great teachers, the Zen monk pioneers who set out to enlighten an island ready for an inner transformation based on compassionate awareness.

While the existing Buddhist establishment in Japan met early Zen pioneers like Dogen and Eisai with fervent resistance, Zen Buddhism ultimately perservered and continued to become further transformed in its passage through Japan. The Japanese culture and Japanese Buddhism practices further deepened and strengthened Zen training by combining it with a variety of esoteric contemplative arts—the arts of poetry, the tea ceremony, calligraphy, and archery. Zen Masters of Japan chronicles this journey with each Zen master profiled. The book shows how the new practices soon gained in popularity among all walks of life—from the lowly peasant, offering a hope of reincarnation and a better life; to the Samurai warrior due to its casual approach to death; to the ruling classes, challenging the intelligentsia because of its scholarly roots.

A collection of Zen stories, meditation, and their wisdom, Zen Masters of Japan also explores the illusive state of 'No Mind' achieved in Japan that is so fundamental to Zen practices today.

Things Japanese: Everyday Objects of Exceptional Beauty and Significance

One Square Mile of Hell: The Battle for Tarawa

The History and Culture of Japanese Food

Matter in the Floating World: Conversations with Leading Japanese Architects and Designers

So Lovely a Country Will Never Perish: Wartime Diaries of Japanese Writers (Asia Perspectives: History, Society, and Culture)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

understood to be Dogen’s Zen. Ejo reminded Gikai that zazen was the singular focus of Dogen’s teaching. Ejo knew there were members of the sangha at Eiheiji who did not believe that zazen was necessarily the only appropriate form of practice, so he questioned Gikai about where he stood on the issue. Gikai admitted that, while he valued the practice of zazen, he believed there were other disciplines that could be just as valuable to one’s religious development. Ejo pressed the issue, and Gikai at

needed to sit zazen if one were already, as the Buddha had proclaimed, enlightened. Koans forced the practitioner to approach his or her meditation with an inquiring frame of mind, and that spirit of questioning proved to be an effective tool—a “skillful means” or upaya—for arousing the “Great Doubt” needed to bring aspirants to awakening. In spite of the preferential status he gave Zen, Enni also honored the Shingon and Tendai teachings and was thus eventually able to win respect for the Zen

zazen. Don’t sow tea seeds, but practice zazen. (33) One of the most frequently told stories about Ikkyu relates his response to a layman who approached him while he was abbot of Daitokuji. “Master, you are renowned both for your wisdom and the beauty of your calligraphy,” the layman said. “It would be a great honor if you would write down some words of guidance which I could hang on my wall and reflect upon.” Ikkyu took up his writing brush and, with a flourish, wrote the single word

liberation?” These words startled the young man, and he became Sosan’s disciple. After many years, he too attained awakening, and Sosan declared him his successor, giving him the robe and bowl that had been passed down from Bodhidharma. By the time of Doshin, the suppression of Buddhism had abated and monasteries were once again open, and a formal tradition of Zen training started to evolve. Doshin instructed his disciples to be earnest in their practice of zazen. “Zazen is basic to all else.

mountains of China. Using Chinese models, Shotoku worked aggressively to reform Japanese institutions, governance, the legal system, the calendar, and other branches of learning. The Chinese mode of writing, kanji, was adopted, with the result that while a particular character would have the same meaning in both languages, the word it represented, the sound, could be entirely different. For example, it has already been mentioned 42 that the Japanese pronounced the characters for “Huike” as

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