Original Teachings of Cha'an Buddhism

It's old hat by now to remark (or joke) about the impenetrability of Zen Buddhism. Its defiance of logic and customary subject-object relationships has been both a barrier and an enticement to Westerners. This is a book of selections from the Transmission of the Lamp, a collection of Ch'an writings that was put together in the 11th Century, a century before the teaching arrived in Japan. The stories in this collection are spared quaintness by their very authenticity. You can hear the speakers, see the actions. What emerges is an insistence on a kind of apprehension that disavows subject/object and mind/mindless distinctions. Professor Chang's translation is just right (he got his degree at Columbia) and his metaphor of intuition as the ordinary mental act that brings us closest to no-mind is brilliant. The goal of immersion in direct reality seems, if not exactly at hand to be fluttering about the room, just out of reach. If you would know the difference between teachers and theologians, here's the book for you, immediate and real. Lynn Hoffman, author of The New Short Course in Wine

This hard-back edition is extremely rare. I believe the paperback is an exact copy in different binding. This is a book of selections from the Transmission of the Lamp, a collection of Ch'an writings that was put together in the 11th Century, a century before the teaching arrived in Japan. The stories in this collection are spared quaintness by their very authenticity. You can hear the speakers, see the actions. What emerges is an insistence on a kind of apprehension that disavows subject/object and mind/mindless distinctions. Professor Chang's translation is just right (he got his degree at Columbia) and his metaphor of intuition as the ordinary mental act that brings us closest to no-mind is brilliant. The goal of immersion in direct reality seems, if not exactly at hand to be fluttering about the room, just out of reach. If you would know the difference between teachers and theologians, here's the book for you, immediate and real. Lynn Hoffman, author of The New Short Course in Wine