Japan

  1. Japanese Temple Buddhism

    Posted by webmaster on Tuesday, 6 December 2011

    There have been many studies that focus on aspects of the history of Japanese Buddhism. Until now, none have addressed important questions of organization and practice in contemporary Buddhism, questions such as how Japanese Buddhism came to seen as a religion of funeral practices; how Buddhist institutions envision the role of the laity; and how a married clergy has affected life at temples and the image of priests. This volume is the first to address fully contemporary Buddhist life and institutions - topics often overlooked in the conflict between the rhetoric of renunciation and the practices of clerical marriage and householding that characterize much of Buddhism in today’s Japan. Informed by years of field research and his own experiences training to be a Tendai priest, Stephen Covell skillfully refutes this "corruption paradigm" while revealing the many (often contradictory) facets of contemporary institutional Buddhism, or as Covell terms it, Temple Buddhism.

  2. Did Dogen Go to China?

    Posted by webmaster on Tuesday, 6 December 2011

    Dogen (1200-1253), the founder of the Soto Zen sect in Japan, is especially known for introducing to Japanese Buddhism many of the texts and practices that he discovered in China. Heine reconstructs the context of Dogen's travels to and reflections on China by means of a critical look at traditional sources both by and about Dogen in light of recent Japanese scholarship. While many studies emphasize the unique features of Dogen's Japanese influences, this book calls attention to the way Chinese and Japanese elements were fused in Dogen's religious vision.

  3. The Shobogenzo

    Posted by webmaster on Tuesday, 2 August 2011

    The Shobogenzo is a collection of writings by the First Japanese Soto Zen Buddhist Ancestor, Great Master Eihei Dogen, based primarily on formal Dharma talks which he gave to his disciples at various times between 1233 and his death twenty years later at age fifty-three.

  4. Secrets of the Lotus

    Posted by webmaster on Friday, 29 October 2010

    Within the context of contemporary Western Buddhism, Secrets of the Lotus provides a unique collection of materials on Buddhist meditation. It it includes translations of and commentaries on foundational meditation texts in the Theravada and Japanese Zen traditions:

    • The Satipatthana Sutta, the Vimuttimagga, the Zazen-gi with Mumon Yamada Roshi's teisho, and Hakuin's commentary on the Heart Sutra

    • A discussion of zazen within the Rinzai tradition by a contemporary Zen Priest (the Rev. Eshin Nishimura);

  6. History Zen Buddhism

    Posted by webmaster on Tuesday, 4 August 2009

    Unparalleled in scope and detail, this classic history of Zen covers all important ideas and developments in the tradition from its beginnings in India through the Sung period in China. It includes chapters on Sakyamuni, the Yogic Element in Buddhism, the relationship between Mayahana and Zen, the Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, the course of Zen after Hui-Neng, and "the true human of no rank" in the teachings of Lin-Chi. Dumoulin’s work stands as a monumental study against which all other histories of Zen must be measured.