The Records of Mazu and the Making of Classical Chan Literature explores the historical growth and transformation of Chan (Zen) Buddhist literature in medieval China, focusing especially on the earliest records of Mazu Daoyi (709-788). It presents important primary materials about classical Chan Buddhism, some of them translated for the first time into English.

The Records of Mazu and the Making of Classical Chan Literature explores the growth, makeup, and transformation of Chan (Zen) Buddhist literature in late medieval China. The volume analyzes the earliest extant records about the life, teachings, and legacy of Mazu Daoyi (709-788), the famous leader of the Hongzhou School and one of the principal figures in Chan history. While some of the texts covered are well-known and form a central part of classical Chan (or more broadly Buddhist) literature in China, others have been largely ignored, forgotten, or glossed over until recently. Poceski presents a range of primary materials important for the historical study of Chan Buddhism, some translated for the first time into English or other Western language. He surveys the distinctive features and contents of particular types of texts, and analyzes the forces, milieus, and concerns that shaped key processes of textual production during this period. Although his main focus is on written sources associated with a celebrated Chan tradition that developed and rose to prominence during the Tang era (618-907), Poceski also explores the Five Dynasties (907-960) and Song (960-1279) periods, when many of the best-known Chan collections were compiled. Exploring the Chan School's creative adaptation of classical literary forms and experimentation with novel narrative styles, The Records of Mazu and the Making of Classical Chan Literature traces the creation of several distinctive Chan genres that exerted notable influence on the subsequent development of Buddhism in China and the rest of East Asia.

The popular name for Chan Buddhism, in the West, is Zen Buddhism, as it was Japanese scholars who first introduced Chan Buddhism to the West with this translation. Indeed, chan is a shortened form of the Chinese word channa, rendered from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which denotes practices of the concentration of the mind through meditation or contemplation. Although rooted in the Indian tradition of yoga, which aims at the unification of the individual with the divine, meditative concentration became integrated into the Buddhist path to enlightenment as one of the three learnings (sanxue) of Buddhism. Early Buddhist (or the so-called Hinayana Buddhist) scriptures include the teachings on four stages of meditation, four divine abodes, four formless meditations, the tranquility (samatha) and insight (vipassanā) meditations, and so on. Early Buddhist communities commonly practiced these meditations, along with the moral disciplines and the study of the scriptures and doctrines. Mahayana Buddhism, in India and East Asia, continued the practice of meditation as one of the six perfections (or virtues) of the bodhisattva path. In this general context, some eminent monks might have composed scriptures/treatises for the training of meditation or have become more famed with meditation. However, the school of Chan is more than just a group of meditation practitioners. As one of the Chinese Buddhist schools, it involves its own ideology, its own community, and its own genealogical history, serving to establish its own identity. The Historical Dictionary of Chan Buddhism contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 400 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, schools, texts, vocabularies, doctrines, rituals, temples, events, and other practices. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Chan Buddhism.

This book brings together an impressive group of scholars to critically engage with a wide-ranging and broad perspective on the historical and contemporary phenomenon of Zen. The structure of the work is organized to reflect the root and branches of Zen, with the root referring to important episodes in Chan/Zen history within the Asian context, and the branches referring to more recent development in the West. In collating what has transpired in the last several decades of Chan/Zen scholarship, the collection recognizes and honors the scholarly accomplishments and influences of Steven Heine, arguably the most important Zen scholar in the past three decades. As it looks back at the intellectual horizons that this towering figure in Zen/Chan studies has pioneered and developed, it seeks to build on the grounds that were broken and subsequently established by Heine, thereby engendering new works within this enormously important religio-cultural scholarly tradition. This curated Festschrift is a tribute, both retrospective and prospective, acknowledging the foundational work that Heine has forged, and generates research that is both complementary and highly original. This academic ritual of assembling a liber amicorum is based on the presumption that sterling scholarship should be honored by conscientious scholarship. In the festive spirit of a Festschrift, this anthology consists of the resounding voices of Heine and his colleagues. It is an indispensable collection for students and scholars interested in Japanese religion and Chinese culture, and for those researching Zen Buddhist history and philosophy.

This book provides an innovative and critical analysis, in light of Song dynasty (960-11279) Chinese cultural and intellectual historical trends, of the Blue Cliff Record, the seminal Chan/Zen Buddhist collection of commentaries on one hundred gongan/koan cases, which has long been celebrated for its intricate and articulate interpretative methods.

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 robust, funny, and poignant engagement between Zen luminaries and the emergent chоnin or “townsperson” culture of early modern Japan. Here we find Zen monks engaging with samurai, merchants, housewives, entertainers, and farmers. These masters affirmed that the essentials of Zen practice—zazen, koan study, even enlightenment—could be conveyed to all members of Japanese society in ordinary speech, including even comic verse and work songs. Against the backdrop of this rich tableau, Zen Master Tales serves not only as a text for Zen students but also as a wide-ranging window onto the fascinating literary, material, and social history of Edo Japan. In his introduction, translator Peter Haskel explains the history of Zen “stories” from the tradition’s Golden Age in China through the compilation of the classic koan collections and on to the era from which the stories in Zen Master Tales are drawn. What was true of the Chinese tradition, he writes—“its focus on the individual’s ordinary activity as the function, the manifestation of the absolute”—continued in the Japanese context. “Most of these Japanese stories, however unabashedly humorous and at times crude, impart something of the character of the Zen masters involved, whose attainment must be plainly manifest in even the most humble and unlikely of situations.”