Zen Enlightenment - Softcover

History and essence are tightly interwoven in Zen Buddhism. Zen Buddhists trace their school's way of enlightenment back to the terrains of India and the founder of the Buddhist religion, Shakyamuni. In Zen Enlightenment: Origins and Meaning , Heinrich Dumoulin explains how Mahayana Buddhism, originating in the spiritual legacy of India, met with Chinese Taoism, an encounter essential to the birth of Zen, the meditation school of Mahayana. And there, primarily through the activity of the great masters of the T'ang period (618?906), Zen acquired its distinctly Chinese character. Beautiful quotations from Chinese Zen literature and nuanced chronicles of contemporary Zen students, along with compilations of koans and sayings of the masters, add color and perspective to the fascinating picture we have of the early Chinese Zen movement.

Heinrich Dumoulin holds a Ph.D. from the Gregorian University, Rome; a Litt.D. from the University of Tokyo; and an honorary Doctorate in Theology from the University of Würzburg. A resident of Tokyo since 1935, he was Professor of Philosophy and History of Religions at Sophia University in Tokyo from 1941 to 1976. His writings include Kamo Mabuchi: Ein Beitrag zur japanischen Religions und Geistesgeschichte (Tokyo, 1943); The Development of Chinese Zen After the Sixth Patriarch (New York, 1953); Zen Geschichte und Gestalt (Bern, 1959), translated as A History of Zen Buddhism (New York, 1963); Östliche Meditation und christliche Mystik (Freiburg, 1966); editor, Buddhismus der Gegenwart (Freiburg, 1970), translated as Buddhism in the Modern World (New York, 1976); Christianity Meets Buddhism (La Salle, Illinois, 1974); Zen Buddhism in the 20th Century (New York, 1992); and many works in the Japanese language.