Zen and the Art of...

2009

Zen for Mothers is a Danish book on how to get the best out of motherhood in a way best suited for the modern mother, who aspires to fulfill the needs of both her children and her own individuality. Zen and Management is another, written by a Zen practitioner and one of the directors of the company Zen Mind. The book caters to the individual who wants a “considerably improved life quality” (zenmind.dk) and the modern manager who aims at optimizing leadership and business through Zen philosophy and practice. These books are inspired by a long list of predecessors, beginning with Zen in the Art of Archery (Herrigel 1953) and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), both of which became cult literature for generations of truth-seeking westerners. The catchy title “Zen and the Art of…” has since then become the epitome of a whole genre of books expressing a general fascination with one specific concept. Apart from fancy book titles, Zen, as a floating signifier for anything rel...

A chronological review of the some of the major figures in the history of Zen Buddhism, interspersed with poems and stories.

2003

t h e "t h i r d se q u e l" to Masao Abe's Zen and Western Thought constitutes yet another testimony to the contribution A b e ， s work has made to comparative philos ophy and inter-religious dialogue. His highly accessible prose and compelling style have gone a long way to bring to the awareness of the English reading world the ideas that Buddhism not only presents a subject for the historical and textual stud ies but also offers a valid philosophical approach, that there are valid models for inter-religious dialogue outside of the generally assumed triad of exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism formulated within the context of a Christian framework, and that there is an original philosophy made in Japan. I completely agree with Abe that a non-dual philosophy framed as philosophy of Absolute Nothingness not only constitutes a philosophical standpoint generally ignored in the mainstream dis courses in philosophy, ethics, and inter-religious dialogue, but also tackles some of the most fundamental, perennial problems inherent in these discourses. Non-dual ism offers interesting solutions to some of the most tenacious philosophical prob lems, such as the mind-body problem; it suggests an ethics that neither privileges the individual over society nor submerges it therein; finally, as Abe suggested in his

2009

Koans fi-Ιξ have fascinated audiences and perplexed scholars outside Asia for nearly a century, especially since D. T. Suzuki popularized Zen Buddhism. The numerous explana­ tions in popular accounts and historical surveys of Zen, the dozens of philosophical and psychological interpretations and handful of historical investigations in scholarly journals and anthologies, and the nearly countless commentaries in publications directed at practitioners, have neither diminished the intrigue nor settled the matter of their meaning. The books under review augment a fresh wave of scholarship in English on this rather unique genre of literature and mode of Buddhist practice. The Köan compiles eleven previously unpublished articles by experts in the field of Ch'an or Zen studies. As the editors' Introduction makes clear, the articles deliberately avoid a focus on the psychological or mystical aspects, and critique the tradition's own selfnarrative, which includes the conceit that ...

Philosophy East and West, 2006

T e x t b y Pe t e r Z h a n g , Ph o t o g r a ph s b y W e i-Sh y u a n (St o n e ) Pe n g If a mantis can pray, then a great egret can certainly meditate. The posture is the message. As we meditate on its posture, the egret seems to be meditating on something else, or is it actually in a wuxin (^C'Ia ) mode. The image med iates our meditator-becoming. We can identify with almost the entirety of the

The Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, 2000

I have been practicing psychoanalysis and Zen Buddhism for more than twenty years. At first they felt like two separate practices conducted in parallel. As the years have gone by, however, they increasingly have converged, and I have begun to see them both as structured disciplines of moment-to-moment awareness and to evolve a common conceptual framework to describe the mechanism of character change within each. But before I try to describe that conceptual framework, let me start by saying a little bit about what one actually does when one practices Zen. Although there are almost as many schools of Zen as there are of psy choanalysis, for our purposes, their various styles can be roughly divided into two basic types, which I like to call top down or bottom up. What I call a top down practice'is a concentration practice, such as working on the koan Mu. Traditionally, this is the first koan assigned in Rinzai Zen temples. The practice originates from the story of a famous encounter between a student and the Chinese Zen master Joshu. The monk asked Joshu, "Does a dog have the Buddha-Nature?" Joshu an swered, "Mu." "Mu" literally means "no," even though it is one of the most basic tenets of the historical Buddha's original teaching that every sentient being possesses Buddha-nature. Generations of Zen students have been challenged to present to their teachers the meaning of Joshu's "Mu." One practices with this first koan by concentrating all one's at tention on silently repeating the single syllable Mu breath after breath after breath. Everything becomes this one sound. I breathe Mu in and out; Mu breathes me in and out. Outside and inside disappear, the bound aries between the self and the world disappear, and there is only THIS. When we are nothing but THIS, there is no separation: no separate self, no separate object of experience. No has or has not Buddha-Nature. I call this a top down practice because it is intended to induce the of kind peak experience that has been called "oneness." In traditional Zen terminology, we would speak of encountering "the Absolute," which is

The Free University, 2020

Wriggle room in any advanced levels of formalisation of intellectual development, i.e. specific knowledge and skills, as economics is, lie in the playground that is the mind. Wriggle room exists in noticing that the formalism in systems requires certain formal behaviours. These do not have to be abandoned if at the same time wriggle room is found as it is, in the playground of the mind as playground, the body capable of making conversations rather than of slavishly following the requirements of formal engagements with other bodies and nature [inasmuch as knowledge is quintessentially phenomenal].

This is a modestly corrected and much expanded version of my essay on "A Brief History of Zen." It's about twice as long as the earlier version, with greater detail, additional stories, and some new reference to Tibetan Buddhism.

Handbook of Zen, Mindfulness, and Behavioral Health, 2017