Only a Great Rain: A Guide to Chinese Buddhist Meditation

Very little has been published to date on China's rich traditions of Buddhist meditation. Inspired by the need to increase meaningful interaction between China and the West on spiritual issues, modern meditation master Hsing Yun here brings this vast legacy to life in straightforward and engaging language. Professor McRae's introduction to the world of Chinese Buddhism helps place these instructions in their wider context.

Master Hsing Yun is the founder of Fo Guang Shan-an international Buddhist order with temples worldwide-the affiliated Buddha's Light International, and University of the West in Rosemead, California. Born in 1927, he is a forty-eighth patriarch of the Lin Chi (Rinzai) School of Zen Buddhism and lives in Taiwan.

Tom Graham, a scholar and translator of Chinese, worked in East Asia for ten years. He now resides in San Diego, California.

John McRae was a leading authority on Chinese Buddhism. He authored the books Seeing through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Chan Buddhism and The Northern School and the Formation of Early Ch'an Buddhism, as well as many important articles. McRae also wrote one of the few English translations of the Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra for the Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research. He taught at Cornell University and Indiana University, and was serving as a lecturer at Komazawa University in Tokyo at the time of his death.