A critical review of five articles that appeared in the special issue of Acta Asiatica, i.e. • Saitō, Akira. “Avalokiteśvara in the Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya.” • Watanabe, Shōgo. “The Lineage of the Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya: With a Focus on Its Introduction and Expressions of Emptiness.” • Horiuchi, Toshio. “Revisiting the ‘Indian’ Commentaries on the Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya: Vimalamitra’s Interpretation of the Eight Aspects.” • Ishii, Kōsei. “The Chinese Texts and Sanskrit Text of the Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya Seen by Wŏnch’ŭk 円測.” • Silk, Jonathan A. “The Heart Sūtra (...) as Dhāraṇī.” -/- My overall impression of Frontier is that the authors are committed to a hermeneutic dictated by the Buddhist religion itself, that the Heart Sutra is an Indian text, composed in Sanskrit. The articles in Frontier seem to suggest that no counterfactual evidence exists, or could exist, that would change this conclusion. (shrink)

Exploring the Heart Sutra brings an interdisciplinary philosophical approach to this much-loved Buddhist classic. This new translation with commentary situates the sutra in a Chinese context, offering fresh interpretive resources for making sense of this profound work.

This article illustrates the importance of research methods in Buddhist Studies using the recent article on the Heart Sutra by Ng and Ānando (2019) as a case study. The authors make a novel conjecture about the Heart Sutra to explain a difference between the Xīnjīng (T 251) and the Dàmíngzhòujīng (T 250) but in doing so they neglect the relevant research methods and critical thinking. Their selection of literary resources is somewhat erratic and their evaluation of (...) them appears to contain bias. The authors did not consult relevant Sanskrit texts (including the Sanskrit Heart Sutra). The logic applied to their source materials appears to be faulty at times and this causes them to arrive at an unconvincing conclusion. By going over the same ground, using more appropriate methods and materials, a far better explanation of the problem emerges. (shrink)

Frederik L. Schodt explores his lifelong fascination with the Heart Sutra: its mesmerizing mantra, its ancient history, the 'emptiness' theory, and the way it is used around the world as a metaphysical tool to overcome chaos and confusion and reach a new understanding of reality--a perfection of wisdom."--Back cover.

Heart of Wisdom: A Commentary to the Heart Sutra. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. Tharpa Publications, London 1986. xix, 210 pp. £6.95.

pSarah A. Mattice’s emExploring the Heart Sutra/em is an ambitiously creative, well researched, clearly explained, and richly transdisciplinary work. Mattice’s use of music sampling is inspired, and her survey of translation theories and contextualization of the philosophical traditions in Chinese cultures lay out the reasons for her own translation and line commentary on the Heart Sūtra that privileges its Chinese cultural heritage. It would be a fine book even if without the two long chapters in the middle, (...) whose connections with the emHeart Sūtra/em are tenuous./p. (shrink)

Prajñaparamita-Hrdaya-Sutra - Das Sutra vom Herzen der Vollkommen Weisheit - The Heart Sutra. Ed. Acarya Jen Wen. Zero Verlag, Rheinberg 1982. 80pp. DM 19.80.

This new translation of the Buddha's most important, most studied teaching offers a radical new interpretation. In September, 2014 Thich Nhat Hanh completed a profound and beautiful new English translation of the Prajñaparamita Heart Sutra, one of the most important and well-known sutras in Buddhism. The Heart Sutra is recited daily in Mahayana temples and practice centers throughout the world. This new translation came about because Thich Nhat Hanh believes that the patriarch who originally compiled the (...) Heart Sutra was not sufficiently skillful with his use of language to capture the intention of the Buddha's teachings--and has resulted in fundamental misunderstandings of the central tenets of Buddhism for almost 2,000 years. In The Other Shore: A New Translation of the Heart Sutra with Commentaries, Thich Nhat Hanh provides the new translation with commentaries based on his interpretation. Revealing the Buddha's original intention and insight makes clear what it means to transcend duality and pairs of opposites, such as birth and death, and to touch the ultimate reality and the wisdom of nondiscrimination. By helping to demystify the term "emptiness," the Heart Sutra is made more accessible and understandable. Prior to the publication of The Other Shore, Thich Nhat Hanh's translation and commentaries of the Heart Sutra, called The Heart of Understanding, sold more than 120,000 copies in various editions and is one of the most beloved commentaries of this critical teaching. This new book, The Other Shore, supersedes all prior translations. (shrink)

Mahāyāna sūtras are obviously texts in the conventional sense of the word, but how they work as texts, the purposes they serve, and the manner in which they are constructed have so far attracted comparatively little sustained theoretical attention of the sort that goes beyond specific examples. This paper addresses itself to two well-known formal features of this voluminous genre which have yet to receive the critical reflection they deserve. The first is a pervasive self-referentiality, taking various forms, some of (...) them fairly straightforward, even banal, others highly challenging and paradoxical in their effect. The second feature is the use of formulas and lists, not singly, but in combination, in a way which expands a theme along two or more axes or vectors concurrently. These two features, while by no means exhaustive of all the things that make Mahāyāna sūtras the distinctive type of scripture they are, provide evidence of a passion for complexity which seems to be part of their DNA. Intensely generative of ever greater amounts of text, these features blur and even erase the boundaries between the creators of texts, the writers and speakers, and their consumers, the readers and hearers. In this paper they are explored with special reference to a small number of sūtras, some of which are demonstrably early productions of the Mahāyāna movement. (shrink)

Reversing the light to shine within, Avalokiteshvara Enlightens all the sentient beings, thus he is a Bodhisattva. His mind is thus, thus, unmoving, a superior one at peace. His total understanding of the ever-shining makes him a host and master. When the six types of psychic powers become an ordinary matter, Then even less can the winds and rains of the eight directions cause alarm. Rolling it up retracts it and keeps it secretly hidden away. Letting it go expands it (...) so it fills the whole world entirely. (shrink)

Yoga is well known for its power to create a healthy body, but few realize the emotional and spiritual benefits. In The Secret Power of Yoga, world-renowned Yoga expert Nischala Joy Devi interprets Patanjalis Yoga Sutras, the principles at the basis of Yoga practice, from a heart-centered, intuitive, feminine perspective, resulting in the first translation intended for women.Devi's simple, elegant, and deeply personal interpretations capture the spirit of each sutra, and her suggested practices offer numerous ways to embrace (...) the spirituality of Yoga throughout your day. (shrink)

Having translated The Diamond Sutra and The Heart Sutra, and following with The Platform Sutra, Red Pine now turns his attention to perhaps the greatest Sutra of all. The Lankavatara Sutra is the holy grail of Zen. Zen's First Patriarch, Bodhidharma, gave a copy of this text to his successor, Hui-k'o, and told him everything he needed to know was in this book. Passed down from teacher to student ever since, this is the only (...) Zen sutra ever spoken by the Buddha. Although it covers all the major teachings of Mahayana Buddhism, it contains but two teachings: that everything we perceive as being real is nothing but the perceptions of our own mind and that the knowledge of this is something that must be realized and experienced for oneself and cannot be expressed in words. In the words of Chinese Zen masters, these two teachings became known as "have a cup of tea" and "taste the tea." This is the first translation into English of the original text used by Bodhidharma, which was the Chinese translation made by Gunabhadra in 443 and upon which all Chinese Zen masters have relied ever since. In addition to presenting one of the most difficult of all Buddhist texts in clear English, Red Pine has also added summaries, explanations and notes, including relevant Sanskrit terms on the basis of which the Chinese translation was made. This promises to become an essential text for anyone seeking to deepen their understanding or knowledge of Zen. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Lotus Sutra as Good News: A Christian Reading 1Paul J. GriffithsChristian Reading of Non-Christian WorksFor Christians, the good news (the gospel) is, first and most fundamentally, a set of events: God’s loving creation of all things; his calling, or election, of a particular people to bear a covenanted relation with him; his incarnation, death, and resurrection; and the salvation of humanity wrought thereby. I’ll call this the (...) fundamental good news. Second, and derivatively, the good news is any witness to these events, any reflection or description or commendation of them in words or actions. Not all such witnesses are equally comprehensive and explicit. Some may present only a part of the fundamental good news: God’s love, say, or some truths about the human condition that comport well with or are required by the fundamental good news. And such parts may be presented directly and explicitly; or largely implicitly, veiled by allusion and metaphor; or even entirely implicitly, present only in what is not said. I’ll call all such witnesses, no matter the degree of their comprehensiveness and explicitness, examples of derivative good news.For us Christians, the Bible is the paradigm or archetype of derivative good news. There, for us, is found the supremely authoritative literary record of God’s acts for us and our responses to them. And in that literary record are the four gospels, which are also instances of derivative good news, but which bear the title ‘gospel’ or ‘good news’ (evangelism) and are derivative good news in an even more special sense than is the Bible as a whole. This is because they contain an explicit record of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, whose presence in the world was, is, and will be the pivotal event in God’s relations with human beings. The Bible as a whole is, for Christians, a work whose central topics are God’s acts and God’s relations to us, and it is uniquely authoritative on those topics. It is not itself the fundamental good news, nor the only witness to or literary presentation of the fundamental good news, nor a fully comprehensive and explicit witness to the fundamental good news; but it is uniquely authoritative for Christians as a witness and presentation to this fundamental good news. Christian understandings of the fundamental good news are therefore always formed in conversation with it, and are self-consciously constrained by what it says. It frames and constrains all other Christian instances of derivative good news, but is not itself framed or constrained [End Page 3] by them: this is its syntactic function in the formation of a properly Christian account of things.This, obviously, is a specifically Christian view of what the good news is, of what the phrase ‘good news/gospel’ means. The claims made in the preceding paragraph are part of the grammar of Christian faith, enshrined in doctrine, liturgy, and practice. The gospel book may be lifted and kissed before being read to the community of the faithful; the sign of the cross may be made on forehead, lips, and heart before the gospel’s words are read, to signify the purification of understanding, speech, and emotion required before the words of the good news can be heard, and to prepare for the sanctification of the person that is ideally consequent upon their hearing. Thinking and doing such things is part of what it means to be Christian, much as bowing upon meeting is part of what it means to be Japanese. I am a Christian, so this view of the good news is mine. It is the place from which I begin in thinking about the good news. To pretend otherwise would be disingenuous, or worse.But this Christian view of what the good news is does not entail, nor even suggest, that derivative good news is found nowhere but in the Bible. The claim that God is related lovingly to all human persons is part of the grammar of Christian faith: the state of affairs it describes is part of the fundamental good news. It suggests that evidences of God’s love ought... (shrink)

Daniel Raveh's book consists of four chapters, each dedicated to a certain narrative, retold and analyzed vis-à-vis Pātañjala-Yoga, and through the writings of contemporary philosophers such as Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya, Pandit Badrinath Shukla, Daya Krishna and Mukund Lath. The narratives discussed are from the Upaniṣadic lore, the Mahābhārata, the pre-modern Śaṅkara-digvijaya, and finally the script of a recent Bollywood movie, Ghajini.There are several layers to the book, all interesting in and of themselves, but their interconnection is the heart of this (...) unusual work. The thread that binds these layers and connects a myriad of themes and texts--classical and... (shrink)

Not another translation but a highly readable and in-depth exploration of select passages from this essential classical text as a key to the complete path of yoga "The fruit of a lifetime of inquiry and practice, this is a book that the world needs." --Mark Singleton, author of Yoga Body and Roots of Yoga "Unassuming, generous and brilliant, Dave and Ranju teach from the heart with wit and wisdom." --Tara Fraser, Director Yoga Junction, author Yoga for You and Yoga (...) Bliss Understanding Patanjali's Yoga Sutras is the key to understanding yoga itself, and yet relatively few of today's practitioners know how to apply these ancient Sanskrit aphorisms to contemporary life. Ranju Roy and David Charlton focus on 18 of the most important sutras and show how each one illuminates the relationship between the body, the breath, and the mind. The authors examine the interplay of three key terms: support, direction, and space. They suggest that only by taking "support" can you establish a clear direction; and once a direction is established then space can open up. This formula can be applied as successfully to the body (in asana) as to the breath (in pranayama) and the mind (through meditation). Embodying the Yoga Sutras is a practical and a deeply philosophical book. (shrink)

In this essay I hope to make some new contributions to the philosophical opening occasioned by John Sallis’ articulation of an “elementology” more broadly and by his turn to Guo Xi’s exquisite Song Dynasty shan-shui scroll painting, Early Spring more particularly. I do so by bringing the remarkable writings by the American poet and thinker Gary Snyder, especially in relationship to his reading of the great Kamakura Zen Master Eihei Dōgen, directly into the fray of contemporary Continental discourses on the (...) elemental and the ecological. At the heart of this project is Snyder’s development of Dōgen’s elemental discourse of “mountains, rivers, and the great earth.” Like Sallis’ own efforts to recast language into a more elemental discourse, this essay will also focus on the manners of speaking specific to the philosophical and poetic self-presentation of the elements, including the relationship between the philosophical and the artistic as such. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Frederick J. Streng Award for Excellence in Buddhist-Christian StudiesMark UnnoThe awardee for this year's Frederick Streng J. Streng Award for Outstanding Book in Buddhist-Christian Studies is Peter Feldmeier, Experiments in Buddhist-Christian Encounter: From Buddha-Nature to Divine Nature (NY: Orbis, 2019).This monograph is highly sophisticated in covering a wide range of topics from Early Buddhism through the Mahayana, including Zen and Pure Land, the latter of which is often either (...) underrepresented or poorly represented. The mastery and presentation of Christian theology and praxis are superb. As a Christian theologian, Peter Feldmeier demonstrates extensive first-hand knowledge of Buddhist practice, and this is evident in several ways, including a sophisticated presentation of praxes along with religious thought, featuring the differences between the formal logic behind much of Buddhism, the Mahayana in particular, on the one hand, and Christian thinkers, on the other. The author includes discussions of both primary scripture and commentarial/exegetical literature in ways that are accessible, appropriate, and inspiring for undergraduates as well as specialists. Much of the book is dialogical in ways that negotiate differences and similarities in both engaging and nuanced terms, with apt and vivid illustrations/examples. The treatment of the Heart Sutra toward the end represents a more synthetic, constructive turn, one that is all the more effective as Feldmeier has already established the foundations for informed, knowledgeable dialogue beforehand. [End Page 241]Mark UnnoSBCS Board Member and Past PresidentCopyright © 2024 University of Hawai'i Press... (shrink)

This paper has attempted to present Wonch'uk's Ban-ya pa-ra-mil-da sim gyeong chan (般若波羅蜜多心經贊) or Commentary on the Heart Sūtra which was written in classical Chinese in the 7th century. As an example of the intellectual analysis of a sūtra, Wonch'uk's Commentary is an important text that has exerted asignificant influence on East Asian Buddhist thought. A prominent Korean Yogācāra scholar, Wonch'uk authored twenty-three works during his lifetime; unfortunately, all but three have been lost. The Commentary on the Heart (...) Sūtra is the shortest among his extant writings, yet it clearly reflects his incomparable erudition. To date, there has been very limited research on Wonch'uk and his thought in both the East and West. Utilizing Wonch'uk's original Chinese text,this paper will examine the distinctive features of Wonch'uk's Commentary which may offer the contemporary readers an opportunity to remind the importance of sūtra study and the engagement in sūtra exegesis. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Living Zen, Loving GodRobert P. KennedyLiving Zen, Loving God. By Ruben L. F. Habito. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2004. 136 + xxvi pp.In his treatise On Christian Doctrine, Augustine states that non-Christian "seekers of wisdom" may have "said things which are indeed true and are well accommodated to our faith," and even goes on to assert that "some truths concerning the one God are discovered among them." Augustine urges (...) that taking the "gold and silver" of genuine moral and spiritual wisdom from non-Christian sources "should not be feared... but rather [that these treasures ought to be] taken... and converted to our use" (II, xl, 60). As the title of his book implies, Habito believes that "living Zen," and particularly practicing the discipline of zazen, or contemplative sitting, is, for Christians at least, equivalent to the practice of loving God. He addresses himself to Christians—specifically, Roman Catholics—who are seeking to deepen their spirituality, and the book's over-arching purpose is to show that the practice of Zen meditation is both helpful in this quest and conformable with Christian faith. At various points throughout his book, Habito emphasizes that following the path of Zen, if done properly, will in fact strengthen Christians' commitment to their beliefs and, especially, the Gospel's call of loving one's neighbor.Living Zen, Loving God is divided into ten short chapters. In the first chapter, Habito gives a personal account of his experience with Zen. This opening allows him to demonstrate his authority to speak about Zen Buddhism, to introduce the fundamental experience that he is inviting his readers to share, and to illustrate how, in his own case, the practice of zazen shed new light on his Christian faith. As a former Jesuit priest and practicing Catholic, Habito may dispense with any discussion of his qualifications to speak as a Christian. His claim to speak for the Zen experience is less obvious, and so he relates the validation of his kensho (initial enlightenment) by two Japanese Buddhist masters. This, along with the testimonials in the forewords by John Keenan and Fr. Hugo Enomiya Lassalle, SJ, is an assurance that his presentation of Zen is reliable, despite the cultural gulf between his background and that of his Zen teachers.What Habito discovered in his initial enlightenment was nothing less than a transformative encounter with reality, an awareness that is irreducible to conceptual knowledge. Kensho is the experience of nothingness that cannot be expressed but only patiently awaited in silence (p. 5). This experience carried with it a new awareness of the Christian doctrine of creation and a renewed commitment to social involvement on behalf of those who suffer.The nature of Zen is explored more fully in the second chapter, "Emptiness and Fullness." The experience of nothingness involves a self-emptying, a "peeling off " of layers of the false self to find the "depths" in oneself (pp. 13–14). This work of self-realization proceeds by the use of a koan, an enigmatic statement [End Page 193] or story that brings the disciple to an intellectual impasse. The goal of zazen may be indicated inchoately by understanding that the purpose of the koan is precisely to stop thinking and thus to experience oneself as one is and not according to the labels or concepts one habitually uses. Self-realization, the kensho experience, then opens the capacity to relate to others and the world directly, without the falsification of translating experience into thought: "One who is fully emptied in Zen finds himself or herself in everything, literally, and is able to identify fully with everything, to be all things, and thus to act in total freedom, according to what the particular situation demands. Such a one is no longer separated by the illusory barrier between himself and the 'other.' One sees one's True Self in the 'other,' and the 'other' in one's True Self" (p. 22).The next three chapters develop the themes in this summary through readings of classic Buddhist texts. In chapter 3, on the Heart Sutra, Habito stresses that Buddhist meditation, when practiced genuinely, is not solipsistic, an escape into oneself from concern for... (shrink)

Patrick Æ Hutchings (Oxon), was a longtime Editor-in-Chief (Australasia) of Sophia and a cherished member of both the journal’s philosophical community and the international philosophy community more broadly. -/- With a deep intellectual and academic history (with prior studies in the University of Wellington and Oxford University), Patrick was at the time of his passing an Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne. Over the years, he also lectured in the Philosophy of Art at (...) the University of Melbourne. He also lectured at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT). From 1978–1994, Patrick served as Reader in the School of Humanities at Deakin University, (working closely with his esteemed colleagues Prof Max Charlesworth and Purushottama Bilimoria; known as the ‘intellectual mischiefs’); together they moved Sophia to the Department of Philosophy in the University of Melbourne, and he also joined the University of Melbourne as a Visiting Lecturer in the Philosophy of Art from 1993–1998 (working closely with Christopher Cordner, Graeme Marshall, Brian Scarlett , Tony (AJC) Coady, and Elvira Schnabel). Prior to coming eastwards, Patrick taught at the University of Western Australia in Perth, Western Australia, for some twenty years. He gave lectures on philosophy and arts at the University of Sydney and at the University of Otago (Dunedin, NZ), and he taught English Literature and Philosophy classes at a number of universities around the world, including at Edinburgh, London, California (Irvine), New Zealand, Japan, and India. -/- During his life and over the course of his career, Patrick wrote prolifically in topics spanning philosophy, literature, and aesthetics for many journal publications, including Art International, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Landfall, Islands, The Age, The Journal of the Sydney Society of Literature and Aesthetics, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Sophia, Philosophical Studies (Dublin) and the Art Monthly Australasia. He also published a monograph on the Melbourne sculptor, Peter Corlett, co-authored books on Guy Boyd and Kate O’Connor, and contributed chapters in monographs on figures such as Gordon Walters, Heather Busch, Klaus Zimmer, George Johnson, Tom Gibbons, and Thornton Walker. -/- Routledge (Taylor & Francis) republished Patrick’s 1972 ground-breaking book Kant on Absolute Value (Kant’s ‘Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals’ and of his Ontology of Personal Value), which remains in print (2019). His 2021 article ‘Has God Been and Gone?’ was his last main piece published in Sophia, and he also had a 2022 review in Sophia, ‘Religious Doubt in New Zealand.’ Forever prolific in his writing and editing, Patrick continued to publish into 2023 with another two pieces appearing in Literature and Aesthetics: The Journal of the Sydney Society of Literature and Aesthetics (SSLA) and the Art Monthly Australasia. -/- Patrick is survived by his dear wife Heng (Kitty) Hutchings and was also memorialized recently by a wide range of scholars and friends in both actual and virtual ceremonies held in September 2023. Although Patrick’s funeral service was kept as simple as possible, just as Patrick would have liked it to be, Fr. Michael Elligate led the Requiem Mass; the Ensemble from the Australian Chamber Choir and organist Douglas Lawrence provided glorious music, Peter Wong chanted from the beautiful 'Heart of Great Perfection of Wisdom' from Heart Sūtra to mark the finalé:- Gaté gaté paragaté parasamgaté Bodhi svāhā! (Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone completely beyond, enlightenment!). (shrink)

The article traces the genesis of soku, a particle elevated to the status of an operator of dialectical logic by Japanese philosophers of the Kyto school, to a translation problem that occurred when Buddhist thought spread from India to China. On the basis of the analysis of its most famous locus of occurrence, a passage in the Heart Sutra, it is shown how eva, a Sanskrit particle with the function of distinguishing between logical types of sentences, was transformed (...) into a modifier of identity statements and an indicator of the inability of language to express deep-level Buddhist insights exhaustively. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Heidegger's Hidden Sources: East Asian Influences on His WorkGereon KopfHeidegger's Hidden Sources: East Asian Influences on His Work. By Reinhard May. Translated with a complementary essay by Graham Parkes. London and New York:Routledge, 1996. Pp. xviii + 121.Reinhard May's Ex Oriente Lux: Heidegger's Werk Unter Ostasiatischen Einfluss (1989), translated into English by Graham Parkes as Heidegger's Hidden Sources: East Asian Influences on His Work, makes a significant contribution (...) to the growing body of work that explores the intellectual connections between early twentieth-century German philosophers and Chinese classical texts on the one side and contemporary Japanese philosophers on the other. In particular, May explores similarities [End Page 122] between the work of Martin Heidegger and contemporary translations of Taoist writings available to and known by Heidegger such as Martin Buber's Reden und Gleichnisse des Tschuang-Tse (1910), Richard Wilhelm's Laotse: Tao te King: Das Buch des Alten vom Sinn und Leben (1911), Jan Ulenbrook's Lao Tse: Tao te King: Das Buch vom Rechten Weg and von der rechten Gesinnung (1980), and Paul Shih-yi Hsiao's translation of the Tao te Ching. Hsiao himself describes the latter project in his "Heidegger and our Translation of the Tao te Ching," which was published in Graham Parkes' Heidegger and Asian Thought (1987). On the basis of this comparative reading, May argues that Heidegger's essay "Aus einem Gespräch von der Sprache," published in Unterwegs zur Sprache (1953/1954), constitutes a fictionalization of the conversation he had with the Japanese Germanist Tezuka Tomio and, ultimately, a confession of his indebtedness to Chinese and Japanese philosophy.May's argument evolves in four steps. In chapter 1, he establishes Heidegger's familiarity with the above-cited German translations of the Laozi and the Zhuangzi as well as with the fundamental Taoist concepts. May cites Heidegger's correspondence with Hsiao on their collaborative translation of the Laozi as well as commentaries by Heinrich Wiegand Petzet and Otto Pöggeler, who document Heidegger's familiarity with the translations by Buber and Ulenbrook, and thus establishes Hei-degger's knowledge of fundamental Taoist ideas and writings.In his second chapter, May reads Heidegger's "Aus einem Gespräch von der Sprache" in light of Tezuka's own account of their conversation and concludes that Heidegger poetically constructs his version in order to support his own philosophy and, ultimately, as May argues in chapter 5, to confess his intellectual debt to the Japanese philosophical tradition. May suggests that a note at the end of Unterwegs zur Sprache, which claims that the conversation that "has remained unpublished for some time, originates in 1953/4, and was occasioned by a visit from Professor Tezuka of the Imperial University in Tokyo" (p. 14), is "clearly incomplete and inaccurate" (p. 14). In addition, May cites discrepancies between the accounts of Heidegger and Tezuka with regard to crucial aspects of their conversation: while Tezuka observes "that the kind of indefiniteness conveyed by this film [Rashmon] concerning our knowledge of reality may have intrigued Heidegger as an East Asian phenomenon," Heidegger makes his Japanese interlocutor say that "[w]e Japanese are not disconcerted when a conversation leaves indefinite [im Unbestimmten] what is really meant" (p. 14). Similar discrepancies can be observed in their accounts of passages dealing with the Japanese rendition of the Heart Sūtra's shiki soku ze kū and the Japanese word kotoba. Tezuka's own report furthermore emphasizes Hei-degger's tendency to force similarities, as in the case of Heidegger's rendition of kotoba as Ding. Confronted with these "indications," May concludes that Heidegger did not report a conversation but rather presented a fictionalized conversation in such a way as to enable the readers to mistake it for the historical record.In chapter 3, May meticulously identifies similarities between Heidegger's work and the German translations of the Laozi and Zhuangzi to which Heidegger had access. Thus Heidegger paraphrases von Strauss' observation "that one is only [End Page 123] through the other" as "the Other to it [Being] is simply Nothing"; "Being and Nothing are not given beside one another. Each uses itself on behalf of... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Living Zen, Loving GodRobert E. CarterLiving Zen, Loving God. By Ruben L. F. Habito. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2004. Pp. xxi + 129.At a time when one hears all too often of the irreconcilable differences between religions, it is a relief and a delight to read the words of someone who has gleaned much from Christianity (as a Jesuit priest) and from Zen Buddhism (as a practitioner whose (...) enlightenment has been duly authenticated). Father Ruben L. F. Habito's challenge has been to harmonize the beliefs of these two distinct traditions, both of which have provided him with quite distinctive transformative experiences. It is a mutual influencing that he presents in very accessible prose in Living Zen, Loving God.While the lectures in this volume are not attempts to reconcile competing doctrines and approaches in detail, they do strive to move the reader back to those originary experiences of spiritual insight that both traditions share. Father Habito seeks to uncover the spiritual springs of Zen and Christianity, letting each speak in its own way, for religion is not about doctrines and dogma; rather, as the Zen philosopher Nishida Kitarō maintained, "religion is an event of the soul."1 Habito seems to be in agreement with such a position. In explicating this experiential territory, he includes chapters on emptiness and fullness, the Heart Sūtra, the four vows of the Bodhisattva, Kuan-yin with a thousand hands, and Zen and Christian spirituality. There are many apt conclusions and comparisons in these pages, such as a Christian adaptation of the Buddhist admonition to slay the Buddha if you meet him-for to meet him is to lose him by fixing his significance and intent as rigid doctrine and by rendering the absolute a "thing" in the first place. Habito writes that "if you meet the Christ, crucify him!" (p. 36). Or again, there is an excellent and simple account of compassion: "an out-stretched hand adjusting a pillow in the middle of the night... the night of emptiness, of unknowing.... And in the middle of this, as my pillow slips off, and my head feels displaced, spontaneously, my hand reaches out to adjust the pillow, and I go back to sleep. That's all. This koan is saying, that's compassion" (p. 76). The self has dropped off, and one now acts spontaneously and effortlessly from the purity and depth of radical interconnectedness.What is impressive about this book is the accuracy and ease with which difficult Zen and Buddhist ideas are expressed. For example, kensho is seeing clearly "the reality of everything as not separate from oneself, of everything as it really is" (p. xiii). This realization of interconnectedness results in social engagement, "the discovery of the real and deep bond that makes that person one with society, with the marketplace, with the whole universe" (p. 22). More precisely, "one sees one's True Self in the 'other,' the 'other' in one's True Self" (p. 22). While the goal of meditation is personal enlightenment, the fruit of enlightenment is the emptying of the ego-self, [End Page 343] and a reconnection with the everyday world, with a concern and passion heretofore unknown.Yet, as a devout Roman Catholic, Habito filters Zen through Christian lenses as often as he filters Christianity through Zen lenses. Creation ex nihilo, he urges, can be understood "as an invitation to that experience of the nothingness that is at the heart of our being, which becomes the fulcrum for experiencing the infinite life of God pulsing through this being, through the universe, from moment to moment" (p. 23). Each and every thing is now to be understood as "a complete and perfect manifestation of the Infinite" (p. 23). But what is less than clear here is the meaning of "manifestation." Exactly what is every thing a manifestation of? The Zen answer must be that the awareness of everything as a manifestation of the "absolute" must be understood nondualistically. Habito provides a powerful chapter on the Heart Sūtra, which instructs us that emptiness is precisely form, and form precisely emptiness. Everything is a manifestation of the creative universal energy that is the... (shrink)

Rather than a hatha how-to guide with asanas and step-by-step instructions, The Spiritual Roots of Yoga explains yoga’s origin and underlying philosophy. The book dives straight to the heart of the yogic tradition embodied in the figure of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, an understanding broadened through an examination of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra. It then provides the framework for an accessible comparison between yoga and Christian, Buddhist, and other systems of thought. The author of several acclaimed interfaith studies, (...) Ravi Ravindra writes from a deep understanding of not only the philosophy but the context from which yoga evolved, as well as its standing within the community of religious thought and practice, offering practitioners and other spiritual pilgrims a deeper appreciation of the tradition. (shrink)

In an interview just before his death, Issan Dorsey, an American Zen priest and abbot of the Hartford Street Zen Center, stated, “AIDS is not fatal. Life is fatal. If you have AIDS, you are alive.” Although infected with AIDS, Issan worked to establish the Maitri Hospice for those dying from complications related to AIDS in the San Francisco Castro District, the heart of the gay and lesbian community. His efforts reflect the statement–although the body may be diseased, one (...) can continue to give abundantly and tirelessly, articulated by Vimalakirti in the Vimalakirtinirdesa Sutra. (shrink)

Affectionately known as "Lady Ruth" at the Jivamukti Yoga School in New York City where she teaches, Ruth Lauer-Manenti has presented dharma talks on daily life from a yogic perspective for many years (collected in An Offering of Leaves and Sweeping the Dust, both published by Lantern Books). Fell in Her Hands is an altogether more ambitious work: a commentary and reflection on the venerable yogic text, the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali--written in the form of a series of interlaced (...) stories that grow out of the sutras, with the various characters evolving through the obstacles and challenges that are presented in the Yoga Sutra. Deeply personal, humane, expressive, and even humorous, Fell in Her Hands is a fresh and insightful examination of the yoga--the yoke--that ties us to our friends and family and acquaintances, to the past and the future, and to all creation. The result is a unique insight into the heart of yoga by a much-loved and compassionate practitioner. (shrink)

Buddhist thought flourished in India for well over a thousand years after the life of the Buddha around the fifth century BCE. During this time there were many diverse developments, but for the purpose of the overview in this chapter, two central traditions will be featured. The first centers on the original teaching of the Buddha as represented in a set of texts written in Pāli called the “Three Baskets”. The second tradition is rooted in a set of texts written (...) in Sanskrit called the “Perfection of Wisdom Sūtras” that began to emerge a few centuries later, around the beginning of the new millennium. These texts constitute the historical heart of Mahāyāna Buddhism. This chapter demonstrates that in both traditions Buddhist thought in India was fundamentally concerned with ethical values. (shrink)

This paper concerns broadly with the works of such ethical postmodern theorists as Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas, Giles Deleuze, focusing on how we can contribute to the development of their ideas by discussing Laozi and Zhuanzi’s Taoism, Buddhism, and modern Korean Neo-Confucianism of Toe-gae Lee. I claim that for criticism and art, literature, film and culture as well as philosophy itself, we are now facing this new need of another notion of subjectivity that not only accepts difference but takes the (...) position of whole positivity toward the Other. This different view of subjectivity that can be called "the sublime subjectivity" or the sublime totality of a human being or a society is essentially an aesthetic one, rather than one that depends upon logic, and it is vital to take advantage of Oriental ideas. From the perspective of the ethics of Levinas, I first place the sublime, jouissance, or pure enjoyment, at the heart of literary criticism. The pure sensibility of the sublime, or jouissance, unlike the raw feelings of pleasure, is an aesthetic sensibility beyond the ontological unity of feelings of pleasures and pains. Then with the Oriental thought, I make an attempt to contribute to the development of the ideas on the ethics of the relation of the reader and the literary text’s language. Laozi’s Taote Ching, Chuanzi, Diamond Sutra, and Toe-gae Lee’s notion of Taeguk are briefly explored in view of the aesthetic transphenomenal dimension and the sublime totality. (shrink)

Description: T.R.V. Murti was an original and leading thinker among the Indian philosophers of the twentieth century. He had a brilliant philosophical mind, a love of analysis and argument, and a respect for texts, especially the ones with which he disagreed, as seen in his most important book, The Central Philosophy of Buddhism. With both traditional Shastri training and a Western style Ph.D., Murti was able to bring both strengths to his writing and teaching. Murti knew everything by heart, (...) all the Sutra texts, the Upanisads and other philosophical classics, Panini s grammar, and Patanjali s Great Commentary and other core texts. Upon that foundation, he evaluated doctrines and ideas. Though a philosopher of the classical type, he was also alive to the latest philosophical currents of his day and effectively related the wisdom of traditional teaching to the contemporary questions. It was this last quality that made him a most sought after teacher by students from around the world. Murti spoke with such eloquence and authority that few would dare to interrupt him. He represented the best of Indian philosophical tradition to the world through his teaching at places such as Oxford, Copenhagen, Harvard, Hawaii, and McMaster University in Canada. This book offers an overview and assessment of Murti s scholarship on Buddhism in its Brahmanical context, Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism, Philosophy of Language and Philosophy of spirit. The book begins with a biography of Murti and a discussion of the philosophical influences upon him. Also included is a complete list of Murti s writings. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Walking the Bodhisattva Path/Walking the Christ PathU.S. Conference of Catholic BishopsCatholics and Buddhists brought together by Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, the San Francisco Zen Center, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) met 20-23 March 2003 in the first of an anticipated series of four annual dialogues. Abbot Heng Lyu, the monks and nuns, and members of the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association hosted the dialogue at the (...) City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Talmage, California. The community had transformed their Confucius Hall into a chapel, with a large, newly constructed wooden cross on a wall above an altar facing out from a raised platform, so the Catholic delegation would have a space for worship. A special poster announcing the theme of the conference, "Walking the Bodhisattva Path/Walking the Christ Path," showing a Buddhist dharma wheel at one foot of a bridge and a Celtic cross at the other foot, had been created by the hosting community.The daily schedule for the dialogue did not interfere with the monastic routine at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, which included early morning chanting (4:00-5:00 am), daily rituals in the Buddha Hall, and the single large meal for monastics before noon to which all participants were invited. Catholics and Buddhists meeting in the dialogue began each day with an optional forty-five minutes of quiet sitting together in the monastery meditation hall, each following their own form of meditation and prayer. There was a Eucharist on Friday and Saturday evenings for the Catholics and to which the Buddhists were invited, and additional meals of breakfast and supper throughout the meeting at the City's Jyun Kang Restaurant.Fourteen Buddhists and fourteen Catholics participated in the formal discussions. Each participant spoke on what it means to them to follow Christ or the way of the Bodhisattvas or enlightened beings. In addition to speaking, each participant distributed a short passage, usually from a traditional text, on this topic. Several passages from Master Dogen's Shobogenzo and the Gospel of John were among those shared by the group. Other passages shared were taken from the Avatamsaka Sutra and the Shurangama Sutra and from the other gospels and the writings of Zen master HakuinZenji, the Dalai Lama, Korean Zen Master I-sahn Hye-yeon, the teachings of Master [End Page 247] Hsuan Hua, Shantideva, Origen, St. Ignatius, St. Benedict, the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, St. John of the Cross, and Chiara Lubich. A minute of silence separated the fifteen-minute segments for each presentation. With so large a group, most of the time in the formal sessions involved listening to series of presentations; however, during discussion periods the participants asked several challenging questions of one another.Some participants noted the tension they felt between belonging to a particular religious group and the need to let go of any consequential narrowness. The goal of the discussion was to promote understanding of the differences and similarities between Christianity and Buddhism. At one point, the participants noted several concerns about mutual enrichment: whether Buddhist methods can be separated from Buddhism and Christian methods from Christianity, and what specific aspects of Christian practice truly enrich Buddhists and which Buddhist practices likewise enrich Christians. Several times participants discussed their understanding of terms such as transformation, grace, the incarnation and the passion of Jesus, discernment of spirits, prayer, Buddha-nature, and related terms. There was consensus that Buddhists and Catholics can practically help one another regarding mental cultivation and religious precepts. They expressed this consensus in their choice of the topic forthe next dialogue, "Transformation of Hearts and Minds: Chan/Zen-Catholic Approaches to Precepts."The group agreed to reconvene in 2004 to respond to six presentations, three from each side, on different aspects of this topic.Chairing the sessions were Rev. Heng Sure for the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, Rev. Taigen Dan Leighton for the San Francisco Zen Center, and Bishop John Webster for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Their three organizations are the sponsors of the Northern California Chan/Zen-Catholic Dialogue. Chan and Zen are respectively the Chinese and Japanese terms for the meditation school... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Shōbōgenzō: Yui Butsu yo Butsu [and] ShōjiJoan StambaughShōbōgenzō: Yui Butsu yo Butsu [and] Shōji = [parallel French title:] Shōbōgenzō :Seul Bouddha connaît Bouddha [and] Vie-mort: Extrait de Shōbōgenzō de Dōgen Zenji[,] Maître Zen de XIIièème Sieècle = [parallel English title:] Shōbōgenzō: Only Buddha Knows Buddha [and] Life-death: Extract from Shōbōgenzō by Dōgen Zenji[,] XIIth Century Zen Master. By Dōgen. Traduit du japonais et annoté par Eido Shimano Rō (...) shi et Charles Vacher = Translated from Japanese and annotated by Eido Shimano Rō shi and Charles Vacher [trilingual edition]. La Versanne, France: Encre Marine, 1999. Pp. 152.Eidō Shimano Rōshi and Charles Vacher have completed their second effort at translating selections from Dōgen's Shōbōgenzō into English and French. Their first effort was a translation of Uji (Being-time), an early work. Now later works follow: Yui Butsu yo Butsu (Only Buddha knows Buddha) and Shōji (Life-death).The most striking feature of the translation here of the "Yui Butsu yo Butsu" fascicle is a more meaningful rendering of the title. Whereas most other translations read "Only Buddha and Buddha"—which is at best enigmatic, if not [End Page 320] unintelligible—this translation has "Only Buddha knows Buddha," a distinct improvement. The fascicle deals with the ability to know and recognize other beings of the same kind: fish knowing the fishes' heart, birds finding the birds' trail. Four-legged animals have no inkling of the birds' trail; it lies outside their ken. Similarly, an ordinary person, lacking the Buddha-eye, cannot recognize a buddha, able to see only the outside surface, only attributes and not the traces or trails. "Trace" or "trail" is intended here in the sense not of anything left over or behind—a kind of defilement—but rather of an indicator of where a buddha has gone.The phrase immediately following "Only Buddha knows Buddha" and repeated throughout the fascicle much like a Leitmotif reads: naino gūjin, complete combustion. These words are not to be found in the Sanskrit "original" text of the Lotus Sūtra, but were formulated by Kumārajīva, the translator of the Lotus Sūtra into Chinese. He was thus inspired to capture the gist of the Suō tra: only Buddha knows Buddha: complete combustion. With these words the nonduality of the working and presencing of Buddha with that of the entire universe is given expression.It is the particular merit of this translation to formulate "Only Buddha knows Buddha," in contrast to other translations that have a nearly meaningless "Only Buddha and Buddha," and to recapture Kumārajīva's brilliant interpretive words "complete combustion." The two are inseparable. When only Buddha knows Buddha, complete combustion, that is, penetration and presencing, takes place, the nonduality of samsāra and nirvāna.To say that searching for the true self is the unavoidable fate of human beings (p. 79) sounds a bit deterministic. It would perhaps be preferable to say that it is the wish or desire of all human beings.Shōji (life-death) has been used in China and Japan to translate samsāra, the repeated cycles of birth and death. The brief fascicle "Shōji" emphasizes the non-duality of samsāra and Buddha (nirvāna). Buddha or awakening is to be found in samsāra, nowhere else. The commonsense attitude is that life turns into—becomes—death. In contrast, Doōgen states that life is a temporary condition with its before and after. Thus, life is beginningless. Death is a temporary condition with its before and after. Thus, death is deathless. If we crave life and abhor death, we lose the very life of the Buddha that is to be found nowhere else than in the midst of the whole of birth-life-death.The fascicle concludes with the admonition to remain unattached, yet to have compassion for all beings.This process of birth-life-death is not something that begins at physical birth and terminates with physical death, but is ongoing from moment to moment. Thus... (shrink)

In the field of philosophy, the common view of philosophy as an essentially Western discipline persists even today, while non-Western philosophy tends to be undervalued and not investigated seriously. In the field of Japanese studies, in turn, research on Japanese philosophy tends to be reduced to a matter of projecting existing stereotypes of alleged Japanese cultural uniqueness through the reading of texts. In Nothingness in the Heart of Empire: The Moral and Political Philosophy of the Kyoto School in Imperial (...) Japan, Harumi Osaki resists both these tendencies. She closely interprets the wartime discourses of the Kyoto School, a group of modern Japanese philosophers who drew upon East Asian traditions as well as Western philosophy. Her book lucidly delves into the non-Western forms of rationality articulated in such discourses, and reveals the problems inherent in them as the result of these philosophers' engagements in Japan's wartime situation, without cloaking these problems under the pretense of "Japanese cultural uniqueness." In addition, in a manner reminiscent of the controversy surrounding Martin Heidegger's involvement with Nazi Germany, the book elucidates the political implications of the morality upheld by the Kyoto School and its underlying metaphysics. As such, this book urges dialogue beyond the divide between Western and non-Western philosophies, and beyond the separation between "lofty" philosophy and "common" politics. (shrink)

Noel Carroll, film scholar and philosopher, offers the first serious look at the aesthetics of horror. In this book he discusses the nature and narrative structures of the genre, dealing with horror as a "transmedia" phenomenon. A fan and serious student of the horror genre, Carroll brings to bear his comprehensive knowledge of obscure and forgotten works, as well as of the horror masterpieces. Working from a philosophical perspective, he tries to account for how people can find pleasure in having (...) their wits scared out of them. What, after all, are those "paradoxes of the heart" that make us want to be horrified? (shrink)