Zen Master Who?: A Guide to the People and Stories of Zen - Softcover

Ford, James Ishmael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0861715098 ISBN 13: 9780861715091

Publisher: Wisdom Publications, 2006

Synopsis

Zen Master Who? is the first-ever book to provide a history of Zen's arrival in North America, surveying the shifts and challenges to Zen as it finds its Western home. With the exception of parts of Rick Field's How the Swans Came to the Lake, there has been no previous attempt to write this chronicle.

James Ishmael Ford begins by tracing Zen's history in Asia, looking at some of Zen's most seminal figures--the Sixth Ancestor Huineng, Dogen Zenji (the founder of the Soto Zen school), Hakuin Ekaku (the great reformer of the Rinzai koan way), and many others--and then outlines the state of Zen in North America today. Clear-eyed and even-handed, Ford shows us the history and development of the institution of Zen--both its beauty and its warts.

Ford also outlines the many subtle differences in teachings, training, ordination, and transmission among schools and lineages. This book will aid those looking for a Zen center or a teacher, but who may not know where to start. Suggesting what might be possible, skillful, and fruitful in our communities, it will also be of use to those who lead the Zen centers of today and tomorrow.

About this title

About the Author

James Ishmael Ford is a senior guiding teacher of Boundless Way Zen. James has been a student of Zen Buddhism for over forty years. He is also a senior Unitarian Universalist minister serving at the First Unitarian Church of Providence and a member of both the American Zen Teachers Association and the Soto Zen Buddhist Association. He lives outside Providence.

Reviews

Taxonomists rejoice: for all who have wondered about the difference between a roshi and a sensei, this book sorts these two kinds of Zen Buddhist teachers and offers lots more information about Zen schools and influences. A longtime Zen student and Unitarian minister, Ford is a sympathetic insider who knows much of his history firsthand, yet sees clearly enough to acknowledge the distortions and even abuses in the history of Zen as it came to this country. His delineations form a road map to persons and places in Zen in America. His eye is especially keen in appreciating the early teachers who brought Zen from Japan and adapted it to an audience growing in numbers and receptivity to Asian religious wisdom. End matter, including a guide to finding a teacher, is helpful; missing, however, is some graphic representation—a family tree, perhaps?—that could have summarized paragraphs of prose about lineages and who taught whom. The very existence of the book is evidence of the growth and maturation of a small but culturally significant group of what Ford rightly characterizes as religious believers. Beyond the obvious niche audience, this book holds interest for all curious about American Zen Buddhism and contemporary expressions of American spirituality. (Nov.)
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Edition details

• Publisher: Wisdom Publications
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0861715098
• ISBN 13: 9780861715091
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 280