China RootAuthor :
Paperback
Published : Tuesday 29 September 2020
Description
A beautifully compelling and liberating guide to the original nature of Zen in ancient China by renowned author and translator David Hinton.
Buddhism migrated from India to China in the first century C.E., and Chan (Japanese: Zen) is generally seen as Chinas most distinctive and enduring form of Buddhism. In China Root, however, David Hinton shows how Chan was in fact a Buddhist-influenced extension of Taoism, Chinas native system of spiritual philosophy. Unlike Indian Buddhisms abstract sensibility, Chan was grounded in an earthy and empirically-based vision. Exploring this vision, Hinton describes Chan as a kind of anti-Buddhism. A radical and wild practice aspiring to a deeply ecological liberation: the integration of individual consciousness with landscape and with a Cosmos seen as harmonious and alive.
In China Root, Hinton describes this original form of Zen with his trademark clarity and elegance, each chapter exploring in enlightening ways a core Chan concept--such as meditation, mind, Buddha, awakening--as it was originally understood and practiced in ancient China. Finally, by examining a range of standard translations in the Appendix, Hinton reveals how this original understanding and practice of Chan/Zen is almost entirely missing in contemporary American Zen, because it was lost in Chans migration from China through Japan and on to the West.
Whether you practice Zen or not, taking this journey on the wings of Hintons remarkable insight and powerful writing will transform how you understand yourself and the world.
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