This book is the first to engage Zen Buddhism philosophically on crucial issues from a perspective that is informed by the traditions of western philosophy and religion. It focuses on one renowned Zen master, Huang Po, whose recorded sayings exemplify the spirit of the 'golden age' of Zen in medieval China, and on the transmission of these writings to the West. The author makes a bold attempt to articulate a post-romantic understanding of Zen applicable to contemporary world culture. While deeply (...) sympathetic to the Zen tradition, he raises serious questions about the kinds of claims that can be made on its behalf. (shrink)

Here is a lucid, accessible, and inspiring guide to the six perfections--Buddhist teachings about six dimensions of human character that require "perfecting": ...

What kind of person should I strive to be? What ideals should I pursue in my life? These basic human questions and others like them are components of the overall question that guides this book: What is enlightenment? As Dale Wright argues, any serious practitioner of human life, religious or not, confronts the challenge of living an authentic life, of overcoming common human disabilities like greed, hatred, and delusion that give rise to excessive suffering. Why then, Wright asks, is this (...) essential question often avoided, even discouraged among Buddhists? One reason frequently cited by Buddhists is that pondering a distant goal might be a waste of energy that would be better applied to practice: Quiet the flow of obsessive thinking, put yourself in a mindful state of presence, and let enlightenment take care of itself. In this book, however, Wright contends that pondering this question is meditative practice--that attentive inquiry of this kind is essential as the starting point and guide for any mindful practice of life. Meditative reflection on the meaning of enlightenment focuses us on our aim and direction in life. It guides us in shaping our practices, our ideals, and the kinds of lives we will live. Asking what enlightenment is as a basic form of meditation helps to activate our lives and get transformative practice underway. From Wright's perspective, there is no more important question to ask than this one.What is Buddhist Enlightenment? offers a wide-ranging exploration of issues that have a bearing on the contemporary meaning of enlightenment, including a concluding section with 10 theses that answer the title's question. Written by a leading scholar of Buddhism, the book balances deep learning and an accessible style, offering valuable insights for students, scholars, and practitioners alike. While he takes an examination of what enlightenment has been in past Buddhist traditions as his point of departure, Wright's historical considerations yield to the question that our lives press upon us--what kinds of lives should we aspire to live here, now, and into the future? (shrink)

Extending their successful series of collections on Zen Buddhism, Heine and Wright present a fifth volume, on what may be the most important topic of all - Zen Masters. Zen masters in China, and later in Korea and Japan, were among the cultural leaders of their times. Stories about their comportment and powers circulated widely throughout East Asia. In this volume ten leading Zen scholars focus on the image of the Zen master as it has been projected over the last (...) millennium by the classic literature of this tradition. (shrink)

This book addresses the interrelation between theological thinking and the complex and diverse realms of human ideals. What are the ideals appropriate to our moment in human history, and how do these ideals derive from or relate to theological reflection in our time? In Theological Reflection and the Pursuit of Ideals internationally renowned scholars from a range of disciplines engage with these crucial questions with the intention of articulating a new and historically appropriate vision of theological reflection and the pursuit (...) of ideals for our global times. (shrink)

Buddhism: What Everyone Needs to Know offers readers a brief, authoritative guide to one of the world's largest and most diverse religious traditions in a reader-friendly question-and-answer format. Dale Wright covers the origins and early history of Buddhism, the diversity of types of Buddhism throughout history, and the status of contemporary Buddhism. This is a go-to book for anyone seeking a basic understanding of the origins, history, teachings, and practices of Buddhism.

Abstract This essay attempts to articulate an understanding of the goal of ?freedom? in classical Ch'an Buddhism by setting concerns for ?liberation? in relation to the kinds of authority and regulated structure characteristic of Sung dynasty Ch'an monasteries. It begins with the thesis that early Western interpreters of Zen have tended to emphasise the dimensions of Zen freedom that accord with modem Western versions of freedom presupposing tension between freedom and authority as well as between individual autonomy and the demands (...) of a communal setting. These dichotomies, assumed by modem Western interpreters, appear to have been absent from this medieval Chinese context, thus suggesting that their concepts of freedom and liberation must have differed significantly from our own. The essay examines classical Ch'an rhetoric and practices in an effort to reconceive what ?freedom? might have meant in this context and concludes with a proposal for this reconception. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the kind of historical understanding presupposed in the writing of classical Chinese Ch'an Buddhist "transmission" narratives and places this historical understanding into comparative juxtaposition with modern Western historiographic practice. It finds that fundamental to Chinese Ch'an historical awareness are genealogical metaphors structuring historical time and meaning in terms of generations of family relations and the practices of inheritance. These metaphors link the Ch'an historian to the texts of historical study in ways that contrast with the posture of (...) modern historians. The essay outlines four basic differences between the self-understanding presupposed in Ch'an Buddhist historical writing and that assumed in modern historical research and concludes by suggesting how contemporary historical thinking might benefit from reflection on these differences. (shrink)

This book attempts to articulate a contemporary philosophy of life drawing upon Buddhist resources from the Vimalakīrti Sūtra. Among the major themes in this Mahayana Buddhist scripture is the "skillful means" required to live a healthy and undeluded life. The book adopts that theme as a means of developing a practical approach to contemporary Buddhist life. Following many of the brilliant stories in the sutra, this book attempts to provide clear explanations for the primary Buddhist teachings and the relationships that (...) bind them all together into an inspiring way of living. Among the questions addressed are: who is the Buddha, how is a worldview of change and contingency applicable to current life, what does it mean to claim that there is no permanent self, what are the primary characteristics of an admirable Buddhist life, how is freedom conceived in Buddhism, and how do all of these themes help us address contemporary issues such as global warming, gender identities, political dichotomies, the global economy, and more. Although historical questions do arise in the book, its primary purpose if contemporary and practical, an effort to say clearly how this text helps us stake out a way of living for contemporary, global citizens. (shrink)

Hua-yen Buddhism, the pre-eminent philosophical form of Buddhism in early T'ang dynasty the China, was instrumental in laying the conceptual foundations for virtually all subsequent East Asian Buddhism. This Hua-yen legacy includes Ch' an/Zen and Pure Land, the non-philosophical forms of Buddhism that came to dominance in the centuries to follow. In this sense, Fa-tsang (643-712), the third patriarch and foremost philosopher of Hua-yen, can be considered one of the forefathers of East Asian Buddhism today. By focusing on one element (...) in Fa-tsang's thought, this essay attempts to articulate the overall character of Hua-yen thought and, in the process, to shed light on its connection to other dimensions of the Buddhist tradition. -/- In Fa-tsang's monumental Wu-chiao chang (Treatise on the Five Teachings ), the mental image of a house is taken to model the dharmakãya universe as a whole. On Fa-tsang's account, since any one part of the house - his example is a rafter - is a condition for the house as a whole, that one part through its complex relations encompasses the whole house and is therefore able to reveal it comprehensively. What he calls the "one flavor" of the dharmakãya can be fully tasted in any one part. Adopting Fa-tsang's sytematic principle and taking the concept of bodhicitta as the focal point study, this essay attempts to show the "one flavor" of Fa-tsang's Buddhist thought through the treatment he gives to the traditional idea of the "thought of enlightenment.". (shrink)

relphiPhilosophy of ReligionThat neither Buddhist philosophy nor contemporary standards of thinking would justify Buddhists today continuing to assume, as many traditional Buddhists have, that enlightenment is a preexistent human ideal that is fixed and unchanging for all human beings in all times. Even though Buddhism was founded on the profound realization that all things are impermanent and interdependent, faith in a fixed and independent human nature and corresponding to that nature an unchanging enlightened ideal for life have been maintained throughout (...) much of the Buddhist tradition. We can certainly understand and admire the extent to which the tradition took the image of the Buddha’s enlightenment as the standard against which all others would be measured and on which all forms of human excellence would be modeled. But that timeless conception of enlightenment can no longer be underwritten for us either by traditional Buddhist narratives or by a static conception of human nature. As human practices, capacities, needs, and interests change, so will the images of human excellence that we come to admire and pursue in our lives.... (shrink)

“Enlightenment and the Experience of Karma” analyzes this traditional Indian and Buddhist moral/ethical concept in order to assess the role that it might play in a contemporary culture of enlightenment. Elucidating five dimensions of this moral principle where questions can be raised by means of critical inquiry, the chapter strives to articulate a naturalized conception of karma that could conceivably play an important role in future global society. In order to do that, it reflects on the traditional connection between karma (...) as a moral principle and rebirth as a religious concept and asks what it might mean to develop a karma-based morality without a necessary link to any traditional understanding of afterlife. The chapter aspires to develop elements implicit in the traditional Indian idea of karma that could provide a basic structure for the human moral practice that is essential to any society and any quest for enlightenment. (shrink)

“Enlightenment and the Moral Dimension of Zen Training” responds to critical accusations that the roles played by some Japanese Zen masters in the Second World War were morally deficient. The criticism extends to the allegation that their enlightenment did not prevent these Zen leaders from active participation in the nation’s ruthless military aggression against neighboring countries and that after the war some Zen masters made public statements that expressed an inexcusable indifference to the pain and suffering their actions helped cause. (...) This chapter thus inquires into the role of morality in Zen training and finds that concern for morality does not play a substantial role in Zen training. The chapter also evaluates what that realization implies about the character of enlightenment in Zen and concludes with open suggestions about how Zen practice might expand to more effectively encompass the moral sphere of human life central to the Buddhist tradition. (shrink)

“Enlightenment and the Persistence of Human Fallibility” addresses the expectation that the enlightening insights of Zen masters render them invulnerable to moral and ethical errors and that therefore some form of infallibility has been achieved in their lives. The chapter traces this expectation to traditional Zen literature where the great Zen masters demonstrate supernatural powers and transhuman capacities. Realizing that these narrative descriptions of the great Zen masters were animated by the ongoing development of Zen mythology and the devotion of (...) Zen chroniclers, the chapter considers a highly regarded twentieth-century Zen master, Taizan Maezumi Roshi, whose life can be examined in full detail without the traditional projections of divine powers. Although Maezumi was widely regarded as a profoundly enlightened Zen master, his life story was marred by tragic errors of judgment. The chapter concludes that this convergence helps us humanize and deepened our understanding of what Zen enlightenment is. (shrink)

“Enlightenment and the Practice of Meditative Reading” examines the practices of reading and the critiques of reading that were common in the first few centuries of Chinese Chan Buddhist monasticism. Although interpreters frequently conclude that reading ceased to be a central practice in the institutions of Chan, classical texts show that, reading and writing were just as central to Chan practice as they had been in earlier forms of Chinese Buddhism. Because China’s culture of literacy inevitably extended into Chan practice, (...) a highly unusual and sophisticated theory of reading developed, while practices of reading aimed at enlightenment thrived. This historical realization raises questions about the relation between practices of meditation and reading, suggesting that our own practice of reading might be developed and deepened by learning to conceive of it as a form of meditative practice. (shrink)

“From the Thought of Enlightenment to the Event of Awakening” follows the philosophical reflections of Fazang of the Huayan school of Chinese Buddhism as he explores the progression along the Buddhist path from an initial concept or image of what enlightenment might be all the way through to the culminating experience of enlightenment. His paradoxical claim that complete enlightenment is already fully contained in the first legitimate thought of enlightenment is analyzed in this chapter by understanding it in relation to (...) the basic components of the Huayan Buddhist worldview of thoroughgoing interdependence. Fazang’s Huayan Buddhist philosophy includes in an early philosophical form the basic conceptual elements of the historic debate in China concerning the experience of enlightenment—the widely cited controversy about whether enlightenment occurs gradually over time or through a sudden, momentous breakthrough. This chapter explores the enlightening consequences of meditation on the interdependent character of all realities. (shrink)

relphiPhilosophy of ReligionWHEN EUROPEAN INTELLECTUALS in the late eighteenth century engaged in high-profile, public debate on the question “What is enlightenment?,”1 Buddhist answers to this question never came up for consideration, and it is safe to say that no participant in these debates would have or could have believed that this “oriental” religion had anything even remotely to do with “enlightenment.” Although knowledge of Buddhism was already accumulating in Europe by that time through the merchants, missionaries, and soldiers that the (...) various European empires had dispatched to Asia, what they “knew” about Buddhism was that this ascetic, monastic religion was curiously nihilistic in its central goal:... (shrink)

“Language in Zen Enlightenment” considers the role language might play in the experience of enlightenment. Building on the Zen claims that enlightenment is “not dependent on language and culture” and that enlightenment is a “pure experience” of “things as they are” prior to the shaping effect of language, this chapter takes the perspective of contemporary philosophy and linguistic psychology in order to assess the two primary Western interpretations of the relation between language and Zen enlightenment. To articulate an alternative understanding (...) of language and spiritual experience that goes beyond these earlier attempts, the chapter explores the kinds of language use found in the daily life of Zen communities, the role of the Zen master’s cryptic rhetoric of instruction, and the predominance of silent meditation in Zen training. It concludes with reflection on the possibility that Zen enlightenment might entail awakening to the power and subtlety of language rather than from it. (shrink)

“Secular Buddhism and the Religious Dimension of Enlightenment” follows Stephen Batchelor’s impressive effort to articulate what Buddhist awakening might mean in the current secular culture. Assessing the issues that have prompted the creation of a new nonsectarian “secular Buddhism,” this chapter raises questions about whether this form of secularity nevertheless continues to carry religious meaning as its most fundamental motivation. Reflecting on the possibility of nontheistic forms of religious practice and experience, it links insights in contemporary Western religious thought to (...) the a-theism that runs throughout the Buddhist tradition in order to further inquiry into the qualities and character that Buddhist enlightenment might take under contemporary, secularized conditions. The chapter aspires to cultivate insight into the inevitable relationship between religiosity and any quest for enlightenment and aims to stimulate reflection on what religion might be in our time. (shrink)

“The Awakening of Character as an Image of Enlightenment” describes in some detail two unforgettable characters in the Korean Buddhist film Mandala in order to consider the range of diversity that enlightenment can encompass. Two very different Buddhist monks are presented in the film as both deeply enveloped in ordinary human suffering and as breaking through that suffering to experience a transformation of character that we can only understand as enlightenment. While the kinds of character that emerge in each case (...) are quite distinct, viewers are left to puzzle over how these entirely different paths through human life could both be legitimate instances of enlightenment. While each character in the film provides an image of the Buddhist path, readers are presented with the task of sorting out how their own paths align or contrast with the two provided. (shrink)

“The Bodhisattva’s Practice of Enlightenment” interprets a Los Angeles Times newspaper opinion piece by Thich Nhat Hanh as a contemporary image of enlightenment with far-reaching implications. Written in response to the brutal police beating of Rodney King and not intended for a Buddhist audience, this brief newspaper article nevertheless provides glimpses into the contemporary meaning of enlightenment. The chapter considers Thich Nhat Hanh’s comments in relation to the basic principles of Buddhist ethics before turning to the Vimalakīrti sūtra, a classical (...) Mahayana Buddhist scripture, to extend an understanding of what it would mean to experience the world through an in-depth awareness of “no-self.” Dwelling on the bodhisattva’s effort to cultivate generosity of spirit, the chapter considers the kinds of human relations that Thich Nhat Hanh’s sense of enlightenment entails. (shrink)

“The Thought of Enlightenment and the Dilemma of Human Achievement” examines the Buddhist concept of bodhicitta—the thought of or aspiration for enlightenment. The chapter compares this Buddhist concept to the Greek philosophical notion of the “idea of the good” and finds both playing similar roles in articulating ideal ends—the ultimate goals of human life. If in actual human life, however, these ideals are never fully achieved, a dilemma emerges at the heart of human practice. Although the transformations cultivated through practice (...) may be substantial and far-reaching, perfection remains always beyond out of reach. This chapter examines several reasons for that inevitable unreachability and concludes that, rather than undermining the value or legitimacy of the quest, this dilemma of human achievement adds nuance and depth to the meaning of human enlightenment. Because human beings will always strive toward some form of excellence, humility and the capacity to release the tension of compulsive perfectionism become essential features of enlightenment. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Opening a Mountain: Kōans of the Zen MastersDale S. WrightOpening a Mountain: Kōans of the Zen Masters. By Steven Heine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xiv + 200. Hardcover $25.00. Paper $17.95.On the beautifully designed cover of Steven Heine's Opening a Mountain: Kōans of the Zen Masters, we gaze at one of the masterworks of Chinese painting, Kuo Hsi's Early Spring, painted in the late eleventh century (...) at what may have been the pinnacle of the Chinese Zen monastic tradition. Allowing our eyes to wander up, down, and across this truly great work, we spot the curved roof of a Buddhist monastery gorgeously nestled in a rugged valley halfway up a towering, mist-covered mountain. No image could more adequately capture the mystique that Chinese Zen monasticism attained in that era and has continued to cultivate into the modern period. Steven Heine's new book masterfully communicates the aura of Zen in those times by highlighting a segment of kōan literature that features the work of Zen masters in "opening a mountain." While it is clear that the mountain in this phrase is really a Zen monastery, and that this phrase became a standard way to refer to the initiation of a new monastery, Heine unravels this act of opening by detailing the enormously interesting historical/cultural tradition behind it.Long before the emergence of the Zen or even the Buddhist tradition in China, mountains symbolized numinous, spiritual power. Early Taoists had already used the image of the mountain as a metaphor of mysterious, otherworldly reality. Chinese [End Page 194] popular tradition pictured the deities residing at these far-off and little-known elevations. Buddhists continued to capitalize on images like this until literature valorizing the T'ang and Sung dynasty Zen masters brought them to their current cultural position. Climbing a mountain, and dwelling there, required the utmost mental and spiritual discipline. Residing in that lofty sphere, one attained a vision of the world that in its depth and breadth trumped any understanding that could be attained in the world below. The mountain recluse and the enigmatic Zen master who drew disciples into remote mountainous regions for mental or spiritual training is by now one of the best known, most powerful images in the world. It is quite understandable that the great Zen masters would "open" their monastic training centers in the kind of setting depicted in Heine's reconstruction of the idea of the mountain in Chinese history.What Heine's analysis makes clear, though, is that there is much more to the act of "opening" than we have hitherto assumed. Prior to the movement of Buddhist monasteries into these remote areas there existed a largely oral tradition concerning enigmatic mountain recluses who, like the legendary Taoist Lao-tzu, had withdrawn from the world in the quest for profound spiritual vision. Popular images of these visionaries were widespread throughout China in the medieval period, and no parallel to them existed in the staid, scholarly world of Buddhist monasticism. The movement of monastic Buddhism into that domain, therefore, necessitated a conflict and melding of images, and the terms in which this ideological battle would take place would not be derived from the rarified philosophical and textual traditions that had made Buddhism so impressive to earlier generations of Chinese converts. Instead, Zen masters would compete for popular recognition in south-central China in terms that were familiar to the residents of that area, namely of magical powers, demons, local deities, and the visions, apparitions, and exorcisms that supported that premodern metaphysical world.The innovation of Opening a Mountain is that, while not denying what Heine calls the "conventional understanding" of the kōan tradition, which has been communicated in largely modern, demythologized, psychological images, the book undertakes the study of kōan literature by being particularly attentive to these clear representations of the extent to which Zen was born and cultivated in a premodern world. Opening new territory in Zen kōan studies, Heine works his way back into the medieval Chinese mentality that would have set the context for the emergence of the kōan tradition... (shrink)