Rinzai Zen

This article presents a new approach to Japanese Zen Buddhism, alternative to its traditional views, which lack exact definitions of the relation between the meditator and the Buddha’s ultimate cause, dharma. To this end, I offer a comparative analysis between Zen Buddhist and Christian views of causality from the medieval to early modern periods. Through this, human causation with dharma in the Zen Buddhist meditations can be better defined and understood. Despite differences between religious traditions in deliberating human causal accounts, (...) there are parallel ways of thinking and practicing between Christian and Buddhist meditators. Firstly, I reconstruct three sorts of Christian scholastic theories of creaturely causality: conservationism, occasionalism, and concurrentism. Secondly, Zen Buddhist doctrines are introduced by placing particular emphasis on dharma as causal agency. Focusing on the Japanese Zen practice of meditation, finally I expound two theories of human causality: Sōtō Zen quasi-occasionalism following Master Dōgen’s teaching of enlightenment, and Rinzai Zen quasi-concurrentism given the meditator’s interactive kōan practice. Hence, my comparative analysis explains why religious beings are causally active, passive, or interactive in relation to the first agency, God or dharma, whereby systematically establishing alternative definitions of human causality in Zen Buddhism. (shrink)

El maestro zen Hakuin Ekaku enseñaba a sus seguidores que para lograr la liberación del sufrimiento debían poner en tela de juicio su propia capacidad de comprensión y al mismo tiempo dotarse de una gran confianza en la posibilidad del despertar a la verdad que persigue el budismo. Su método consistía en practicar una serie de kōan, una técnica meditativa basada en la resolución de unos casos aparentemente paradójicos o ilógicos, hasta que el practicante llegara a convertirse en una «gran (...) masa de duda». Dos siglos más tarde, el filósofo japonés Nishitani Keiji, ampliamente reconocido como uno de los miembros más destacados de la llamada Escuela de Kioto, se propuso como tarea pensar el problema del nihilismo, como fenómeno filosófico pero también histórico y existencial. Este artículo examina el modo en que Nishitani aborda el problema del nihilismo y su propuesta de resolución a partir de la influencia ejercida por el maestro Hakuin en él y, más concretamente, el papel que desempeña en su argumentación la noción zen de «gran duda». Sugerimos que el pensamiento de Nishitani se puede situar en la línea de una tradición espiritual que se halla representada en el zen de Hakuin, en la medida en que ve en la duda radical una forma de hallar la certeza, o en la negación de la negación, una afirmación absoluta. (shrink)

"Featuring a carefully selected collection of source documents, this tome includes traditional teaching tools from the Zen Buddhist traditions of China, Korea, and Japan, including texts created by women. The selections provide both a good feel for the varieties of Zen and an experience of its common core.... The texts are experiential teachings and include storytelling, poetry, autobiographies, catechisms, calligraphy, paintings, and koans. Contextual commentary prefaces each text. Wade-Giles transliteration is used, although Pinyin, Korean, Japanese, and Sanskrit terms are linked (...) in appendixes. An insightful introduction by Arai contributes a religious studies perspective. The bibliography references full translations of the selections. A thought-provoking discussion about the problems of translation is included.... Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels." --_Choice_. (shrink)

In this essay, I introduce Ikkyū Sōjun’s amoralism under the heading of negative ethics. I do so in the light of contemporary accounts of what some have called “Zen ethics.” Pushing away from such readings, the essay raises the issue of authority in Zen, whether it is construed as the authority of the dharma, the sangha, or the Buddha. Turning to the poetry of Ikkyū, I demonstrate that any such construing misses themark. As an alternative, I offer a reading of (...) Ikkyū that takes meta-ethics as its starting point. I read Ikkyū’s amoralism as a particular form of negative ethics. This point is drawn out further with an examination of the reversibility of seeming opposites. (shrink)

The logic of soku-hi is presented as an articulation of a post-Kantian view of reality that embraces the truths of science with the assumption of the transcendental subject. As such, soku-hi represents the philosophical posture of both the secular Zen of the Kyoto School and the new materialists of contemporary continental philosophy. It describes how material reality is not all even though there is nothing else.

The two fine books under review represent in different but complementary ways very successful efforts to revise and reprint what can be considered modern "classic" writings on Zen Buddhist thought, with a strong emphasis on the Rinzai sect, that were produced either by an eminent Japanese scholar or an American working in collaboration with a Japanese researcher and were initially circulated in the West through the 1960s. These writings had a remarkably influential impact on the course of Zen studies at (...) the time, but in the intervening years have largely fallen into disuse or a decline in reputation. However, they are richly deserving of the current editorial exercises leading to a recovery and rehabilitation so... (shrink)

Hsu Yun and the ring of wood Daisetsu is the modern Japanese economy were the two temporary army hall. Although Hsu Yun Chan Seng is the traditional, but eyes open, there is practicable, the meditation experience, the courage to bring personal experience. Ring of wood by a solid academic training, the wind out of their English book world, Zen for the Western understanding of a necessary media. Two people came, Experiences, writings, and gives the impression, really almost exactly north-south House. (...) This paper aims to compare the two by the enlightenment of those qualifications, the history of Zen meditation on the interpretation of the relationship between Zen and Pure Land of the discussion, revealing modern Japanese Zen Zen's differences. Xu Yun and DT Suzuki were famous modern Chinese and Japanese Linji Chan masters respectively. Though Master Xu was traditional in outlook, he was open-minded, had rich meditation experience and expressed his thought faithfully. Suzuki was world-class scholar. He made use of philosophical jargon to expound Chan wisdom and introduced it into the West through his accessible English monographs. This paper makes a comparison on their attainments of enlightenment, interpretations on Chan theory and practice, views on the relationship between Chan and Pureland teachings etc., in order to reveal the differences between modern Chinese and Japanese Chan school. (shrink)

Zen Buddhism as it has been discovered by the West in our time emerges as one of the great challenges to Western philosophy, psychology, and religion. The present volume, composed of the work of D. T. Suzuki, Zen's chief exponent in English, and presented to Western readers by William Barrett, is intended to introduce the general reader to the history and spirit of Zen.

著者は西田幾多郎と同郷で親友、思想家としても並称されている人。禅を海外にひろめ今日のブームの火付け役をした。著者の禅は、真宗をも包含するユニークな世界を展開する好著である。.

En este artículo presentamos los conceptos de experiencia religiosa y misticismo en la obra del teórico japonés Suzuki Daisetsu. Asimismo, comparamos la definición de estos conceptos dada por el pensador japonés con las ideas expresadas por William James en su obra Las variedades de la experiencia religiosa y, ayudándonos de este último texto, señalamos algunos de los problemas derivados de las tesis de Suzuki.