The Way to Buddhahood: Instructions from a Modern Chinese Master - Softcover

Yin-shun, Venerable

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0861711335 ISBN 13: 9780861711338

Publisher: Wisdom Publications, 1998

Synopsis

The Way to Buddhahood is a compendium of two thousand years of Chinese practice in assimilating and understanding the Buddhist experience of enlightenment. It is the first in-depth explanation of Chinese Buddhism by Yin-shun, the greatest living master of the Chinese scholar-monk tradition. The master's broad scope not only includes the traditional Chinese experience but also ideas from the Tibetan monastic tradition. This is one of those rare classic books that authentically captures an entire Buddhist tradition between its covers.

About this title

About the Author:

Master Yin-shun's life was dedicated to Buddhism. He was born in 1906 and became a Buddhist monk in 1930. During his lifetime, he wrote over seven million words in over forty books. Being a student of Master Taixu (1890-1947), he expanded the teaching of "Human-oriented Buddhism" (Renjian Fojiao). In 1973, he received a PhD from Taisho University of Japan based on his work on Zhongguo Chanzong shi (The History of Chinese Chan Buddhism). He became the first Chinese Buddhist monk to receive a PhD. He passed away in 2005.

Dr. Wing H. Yeung is a retired psychiarist based in Hawaii where he continues his dharma translation efforts. He formerly practiced in the San Francisco area, and was a cofounder of the Center for Compassionate Living. He graduated from the University of Hawaii's school of medicine in 1977.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Foreword This fine translation of one of Yin-shun Daoshi's most widely read and influential works is a most welcome addition to the small English language archives of modern Chinese Buddhism.

Most western students of Buddhism have been woefully unaware of the extraordinary vitality of contemporary Chinese Buddhism, particularly as it has developed in post-war Taiwan. This has been especially lamentable in view of the fact that the foremost leader of Chinese Buddhism's intellectual resurgence, the monk Yin-shun, is both a scholar and an original thinker of the first order.

Among his many achievements is the renewal of mutually enriching connections between traditional Chinese Buddhism and the ancestral traditions of India, both the primordial Buddhism of the agamas (the northern counterpart of the Theravada sutras) and the later Indian Mahayana traditions that had been so well preserved and advanced in Tibet.

Drawing thus upon the whole broad range of Buddhist thought--but especially upon the Madhyamika ("Middle Way") tradition of Nagarjuna, Candrakirti, and Tsongkhapa--Yin-shun has emphasized the rationalism and humanism of Buddhism while also bringing traditional Buddhist scholarship into invigorating dialogue with modern critical Buddhist Studies as practiced in the West and in Japan. In the course of these ground-breaking efforts he has done more even than his own master, the early twentieth century reformer Taixu, to rescue Chinese Buddhism from the intellectual doldrums and spiritual decay into which so much of it had fallen during the late imperial period of Chinese history. He has also plotted a course for Buddhism's future development that will allow its robust engagement with the modern world without forcing the severance of its traditional roots.

The Way to Buddhahood (Cheng fo zhi dao) presents itself as an introductory overview of the essentials of Buddhism, rendered in the traditional rhetorical modes of Buddhist doctrinal exposition. It is that, of course, but it is also much more. In it we see, not merely a summary of cardinal Buddhist concepts but also something of the rigorous and bold revisioning of Buddhism that Yin-shun has continued to develop in his many later and more specialized works. Thanks to Mr. Wing Yeung's very effective and trustworthy translation, readers of English may now begin to have access to this extraordinary man's ample body of work and to his powerful vision of the dharma. -Robert M. Gimello Professor of East Asian Studies and Religious Studies University of Arizona

About this edition

• Publisher: Wisdom Publications
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0861711335
• ISBN 13: 9780861711338
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416