The
Blue Cliff Record is a collection of
Chán-People:* Chan Marshall, American musician better known as Cat Power* Chan , Chinese surname; Mandarin transcription of the same name is Chen ** Agnes Chan, Hong Kong singer, also famous in Japan...
BuddhistBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
koanA kōan is a story, dialogue, question, or statement in the history and lore of Zen Buddhism, generally containing aspects that are inaccessible to rational understanding, yet may be accessible to intuition...
s originally compiled in
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
during the Song dynasty in 1125 (宋宣和七年) and then expanded into its present form by the
Chán-People:* Chan Marshall, American musician better known as Cat Power* Chan , Chinese surname; Mandarin transcription of the same name is Chen ** Agnes Chan, Hong Kong singer, also famous in Japan...
master
Yuanwu KeqinYuanwu Keqin was the Chinese Chan Buddhist monk who wrote commentaries on the one-hundred koans compiled by Xuedou Zhongxian...
(圜悟克勤 1063 – 1135).
The book includes Yuanwu's annotations and commentary on Xuedou Zhongxian's (雪竇重顯 980 – 1052) collection
100 Verses on Old Cases 《頌古百則》 — a compilation of 100
koanA kōan is a story, dialogue, question, or statement in the history and lore of Zen Buddhism, generally containing aspects that are inaccessible to rational understanding, yet may be accessible to intuition...
s.
The
Blue Cliff Record is a collection of
Chán-People:* Chan Marshall, American musician better known as Cat Power* Chan , Chinese surname; Mandarin transcription of the same name is Chen ** Agnes Chan, Hong Kong singer, also famous in Japan...
BuddhistBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
koanA kōan is a story, dialogue, question, or statement in the history and lore of Zen Buddhism, generally containing aspects that are inaccessible to rational understanding, yet may be accessible to intuition...
s originally compiled in
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
during the Song dynasty in 1125 (宋宣和七年) and then expanded into its present form by the
Chán-People:* Chan Marshall, American musician better known as Cat Power* Chan , Chinese surname; Mandarin transcription of the same name is Chen ** Agnes Chan, Hong Kong singer, also famous in Japan...
master
Yuanwu KeqinYuanwu Keqin was the Chinese Chan Buddhist monk who wrote commentaries on the one-hundred koans compiled by Xuedou Zhongxian...
(圜悟克勤 1063 – 1135).
The book includes Yuanwu's annotations and commentary on Xuedou Zhongxian's (雪竇重顯 980 – 1052) collection
100 Verses on Old Cases 《頌古百則》 — a compilation of 100
koanA kōan is a story, dialogue, question, or statement in the history and lore of Zen Buddhism, generally containing aspects that are inaccessible to rational understanding, yet may be accessible to intuition...
s. Xuedou selected 82 of these from the
Jingde Chuandeng Lu 《景德傳燈錄》 (
Jingde era Record of the Transmission of the LampThe Transmission of the Lamp is a compilation of biographies of prominent Buddhist monks produced in the Song dynasty by Shi Daoyuan ....
), with the remainder selected from the
Yunmen Guanglu 《雲門廣録》 (Extensive Record of
Yunmen WenyanYúnmén Wényǎn , , was a major Chinese Zen master in Tang-era China...
(864 – 949).
Yuanwu's successor,
Dahui ZonggaoDahui Zonggao was a 12th century Chinese Chan master best known as a keen advocate of the use of koans to achieve enlightenment...
(大慧宗杲 1089 – 1163). wrote many letters to lay students teaching the practice of concentrating on koans during meditation. But Dahui did not explain and analyze koans. Oral tradition holds that Dahui noticed students engaged in too much intellectual discourse on koans, and then burned the wooden blocks used to print the Bìyán Lù.
Another key tradition regards
Dogen ZenjiDōgen Zenji was a Japanese Zen Buddhist teacher born in Kyōto, and the founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan. He was a leading religious figure of his time, as well as being an important philosopher...
(道元禅師; 1200 – 1253), a founder of the Soto Zen sect: After an extended visit to China for the purpose of studying Zen, on the night before his planned return to
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, Dogen saw the Bìyán Lù for the first time, and stayed up all night making a handwritten copy of the book.
Similar publications included
Zutang Record 《祖堂錄》 and the
Xutang Record 《虛堂集》, as well as others.
External links