Koan Bibliography

 Koan Collections

The Blue Cliff Record

The Blue Cliff Record (Chinese: (碧巖錄) Bìyán Lù; Japanese: Hekiganroku (碧巌録?); Korean: Byeokamrok, 벽암록(碧巖錄); Vietnamese: Bích nham lục (碧巖錄)) is a collection of Chán Buddhist koans originally compiled in China during the Song dynasty in 1125 (宋宣和七年) and then expanded into its present form by the Chán master Yuanwu Keqin (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 koans. Xuedou selected 82 of these from the Jingde Chuandeng Lu (景德傳燈錄) (Jingde era Record of the Transmission of the Lamp), with the remainder selected from the Yunmen Guanglu (雲門廣録), Extensive Record of Yunmen Wenyan (864 – 949).

Another key legend regards Dogen Zenji (道元禅師; 1200 – 1253), who brought the Soto Zen sect to Japan. After an extended visit to China for the purpose of studying Zen, on the night before his planned return to Japan, Dogen saw the Bìyán Lù for the first time, and stayed up all night making a handwritten copy of the book. Given the size of the book, this story is almost certainly apocryphal.

The most widely used translation is The Blue Cliff Record, J.C. Cleary and Thomas Cleary, trans.

The Gateless Gate

The Gateless Gate (無門關, Mandarin. Wúménguān, Japanese. 無門関, Mumonkan) is a collection of 48 Chan (Zen) koans compiled in the early 13th century by the Chinese Zen master Wumen Hui-k'ai (無門慧開)(1183–1260) (Japanese: Mumon Ekai). Wumen's preface indicates that the volume was published in 1228. Each koan is accompanied by a commentary and verse by Wumen. A classic edition includes a 49th case composed by Anwan (pen name for Cheng Ch'ing-Chih) in 1246. Wu-liang Tsung-shou also supplemented the volume with a verse of four stanzas composed in 1230 about the three checkpoints of Zen master Huanglong. These three checkpoints of Huanglong should not be confused with Doushuai's Three Checkpoints found in Case 47.

Along with the Blue Cliff Record and the oral tradition of Hakuin Ekaku, The Gateless Gate is a central work much used in Rinzai School practice. Five of the koans in the work concern the sayings and doings of Zhaozhou; four concern Ummon.

There are 3 widely used English translations:

Yamada, Koun, The Gateless Gate, Center Publications, Wisdom Publications. 2004

Aitken, Robert, The Gateless Barrier, The Wu-Men Kuan (Mumokan), North Point Press, San Francisco. 1991

Gateless Barrier: Zen Comments on the Mumonkan by Zenkei Shibayama is somewhat hard to find in print. 

Other Koan Collections

Book of Serenity: One Hundred Zen Dialogues Shoyo Roku, Hung-chih Cheng-chüeh, Cleary, Thomas, trans., Shambhala, 1998

Entangling Vines, Shumon kattoshu, is one of the few major koan texts to have been compiled in Japan rather than China. Thomas Yuho Kirchner (Translator), Nelson Foster (Foreword), Ueda Shizuteru (Introduction).

Shōbōgenzō (正法眼蔵, lit. "Treasury of the True Dharma Eye")

Master Dogen’s Shinji Shobogenzo: 301 Koan Stories, Nishijima, Gudo, Michael Luetchford & Jeremy Pearson (eds), Windbell Publications, Woking. 2003

The True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen's Three Hundred Koans, John Daido Loori,  Kazuaki Tanahashi (Translator)

Other Books

Cleary, Thomas, Secrets of the Blue Cliff Record: Zen Comments by Hakuin and Tenkei, Shambhala, Boston & London. 2000

Cleary, Rational Zen; The Mind of Dogen Zenji, Shambhala, Boston & London. 1993

Cleary, No Barrier: Unlocking the Zen Koan, Aquarian/Thorsons, London. 1993

James Ishmael Ford  (Ed), Melissa Myozen Blacker (Ed), John Tarrant (Foreword) The Book of Mu: Essential Writings on Zen's Most Important Koan. 2011

Heine, Steven, Dogen and the Koan Tradition: A Tale of Two Shobogenzo Texts, SUNY, Albany. 1994

Hori, Victor Sogen, Zen Sand: The Book of Capping Phrases for Koan Practice, University of  Hawai'i Press,  Honolulu, 2003

MacInnes, Elaine  Ruben L. F. Habito (Foreword)The Flowing Bridge: Guidance on Beginning Zen Koans 

Miura, Isshu & Sasaki, Ruth Fuller, The Zen Koan: Its History and Use in Rinzai Zen, Harcourt Brace & Co., San Diego. 1965

Nishijima, Gudo & Cross, Chodo, Master Dogen’s Shobogenzo, Book 1, Windbell Publications, Woking. 1994

O'Halloran, Maura, Pure Heart, Enlightened Mind: The Life and Letters of an Irish Zen Saint 

Japanese Buddhism and the Meiji Restoration, The American Academy of Religion, 1997

Sasaki, Ruth Fuller, A Man of Zen: The Recorded Sayings of Layman P'ang

Old wyves tales, covered bridges & the best 19th century structural technology

Old wyves tales, covered bridges & the best 19th-century structural technology

In our rush to solve whatever crisis is in our face, we can trample over people, neglect our own best instincts, or craft solutions worse than the problem that consumes us. I have come to believe that human conversation requires a protected passage over the deep ravines and dangerous waters of our own thoughts before we find the way through.

I also sense that solutions already exist, that they don’t have to be entirely invented, but, in our panic – yes that’s a strong word – we have lost sight of them. Then a friend’s evocative description of a trip through the dazzling New Hampshire foliage of early October inspired me! Of course, the path of our thoughts needs the safety of covered bridges.

I became obsessive in my search for anything about covered bridges. 

In 1909, the Oxford city fathers bridged Logic Lane, a short alley that carried the name from the 1300’s. As you will see from the picture, it is reminiscent of the Bridge of Sighs in Venice, but the Logical Bridge has more of a ring to it and, to my mind, might lead to a living solution, not the gallows.

I found examples of bridges dating from the 14th century, as well as more proximate ancestors of the New England design from Germany. I discovered the 1852 Philippi Covered Bridge across Tygart Valley River that is still part of the US Highway system and, according to legend, the site of a secret meeting between Lincoln and Jefferson to discuss the terms of surrender before the end of the Civil War.

Now onto old wives' tales. Familiar with New England seasons, town squares, bright maples and covered bridges, I am a sucker for almost any romantic notion that can be suggested, especially when the fantasy is confirmed by a heart stopping experience.

Very early one morning in the late fall of 1965, before Highway 89 was finished, I was speeding back to Hanover New Hampshire from Boston. Somewhere between Concord and Lebanon, I lost the road: a sudden cold snap coupled with the moisture of a slight rain, the bridge came up before I had time to adjust my speed. The car spun 180 degrees and slid 200 feet horizontally, never touching a guard rail. It was an eternal second before I reached the other side, gently nudging the car forward into a shallow drainage ditch with what speed remained.

From that time until this morning, I believed that the purpose of the covered bridge was to save speeding fools like me - the surface temperature of the suspended roadway cooled more quickly than the ground! And with no town plows to spread sand and chemicals, a quaint roof might have saved me if luck had not been in my corner and the road had not been deserted!

This morning I began to explore why those tight-fisted old Yankees wasted all that money on fancy roofs that might have saved me if I were driving my mother’s 1962 Ford station wagon on winter roads at a dangerous speed in the early to mid 19th century, the highpoint for covered bridge construction.

So why a covered bridge? The structural strength of a rectangular box is far stronger than any one of its surfaces suspended between two points. This allowed for study bridges for transportation and trade using heavy timbers; steel I beams were not available before the Civil War. Hell, I should have known Yankees only care for income producing projects.

My love of words drove me to the dictionary to see if I could discover the roots of “a time, place, or means of connection or transition” - the second meaning of bridge. I discovered a hidden link, a reference to god language! Violà.

Middle English brigge, from Old English brycg; akin to Old High German brucka bridge, Old Church Slavic bruvuno beam.

There it is! When building bridges, raise high the church beam! Who can pronounce, bruvuno? I say sing it! (Bridge also means a musical passage linking two sections of a composition). Trust in God and love for one another are like a covered bridge.

In this first post, I have tried to lay out a few of the things that I will try to do in the future: I want to look at the way that we have framed the questions, the puzzles that face us; then, try to distinguish fantasy, nostalgia, and illogic in the conversation; and finally, see where we lost the road. That might be just the first step to finding our way. Let's see.

This is a conversation. Hopefully there will be more than one person talking. That is not a conversation. At best that’s is a monologue, but rant might also apply. Let’s dream of bridges and talk to one another.

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Originally posted April 28th, 2010

“Very early I learned to value and respect words, and I also uncovered a passion for reaching my own conclusions.”

When I started to consider the origin of my values, a memory of my kindergarten teacher began to emerge. I struggle for real memories of early age, but this much is clear--she was a wiry woman with a tight bun who seemed a hundred years old, and, at least from the taste of decades-old feelings, someone who did not like children.

She ran her kindergarten in an upper room at the Methodist church that stood at the base of the triangular New England town green in Nichols. Her fixed ideas were shaped by the way Yankee families held that children should behave from time immemorial, or at least as far back as the 400 odd years since our religious fanatic forbearers fled Europe, and childrearing was fundamentally religion. My guess is that she had no love for Dr. Montessori who was, after all, a Catholic.

She was one of the elder “Misses” in town, who, along with the two spinsters who ran the library, always stood for us children as a clear demarcation between our families and single women who obviously preferred the company of their own sex. We were told that because spinsters were just not lucky enough to find husbands, they were forced into a world of loneliness and the company of other women. This we learned by listening to the disdain in the pauses between sentences of our parents’ conversations.

My own experience has lightened any ill will that I might have carried through the years, and perhaps even added a touch of magic to the story that I am going to tell.

I did not want to nap when were told in a voice that did not beckon negotiation: “Put your heads down on the desk.” I would defiantly look up and examine her, and another woman, her enforcer, who were clearly happy to be relieved from having to entertain, occupy or educate their charges. Several times my mother chastised me for not following instructions—she had been warned that I was very “willful”. My response to my mother was probably a complaint, setting the tone for a long battle in our relationship. I would bet the farm that her response was “That is the way things are. Some things are unchangeable and, besides, you are in no position to think for yourself.” So of course, I began to think for myself even if it was entirely reactive.

But there is one memory that comes back to me. It has even appeared in my dreams. I call it the “blue redbird.” We had coloring books that had rudimentary, inelegant, drawings of things-to-be named in the world, mothers and fathers, doctors, siblings and pets, houses and gardens, flowers and birds. The white spaces inside the outlines were labeled with names and colors. On command, in unison, we all opened to a prescribed page, scrambled for the crayons heaped in a pile on a low table in the center of the room, and began filling in the spaces neatly and correctly. Sometimes I would read the labels and oftentimes, not. My coloring was meticulous and colorful. I never had colors bleed from a shirt or cat. I was also very aware of the colors, even at the expense of labels. One day I was carefully coloring a bluebird red. I think it was the woman enforcer who looked over my shoulder and motioned for Frau Dominatrix to come and examine a bird that had been designated blue—clearly.

“Ken that is not a redbird. Can’t you read?”

“Of course I can read, but there are almost no redbirds in Nichols.’

“That was to be a blue-bird. You never going to go anywhere or make something of yourself unless you read and then carefully follow instructions.”

“But I want a redbird!”

“Hush. You have made a very serious mistake. I am going to have a word with your mother.”

I began to cry. And now everyone had turned to look at the boy who wasn’t man enough to hold back his tears.

When my mother arrived in the white station wagon to pick us up, very likely unhappy at the prospect of her two hours in the car with three preschoolers, she was not pleased to hear that I could not read nor follow instructions. She certainly didn’t comfort me. The martinet reflected her own theories of child rearing almost exactly. The kindergarten “Miss” had humiliated me and that meant one less thing that she would have to correct—with any luck.

Why do I consider this an event to be appreciated? I learned that words themselves have consequences and that definitions cannot be assigned arbitrarily. Language was not a child’s game. Language was powerful. It could also become a tool for enforcement.

Rigid language stifled creativity. The blue bird that I had created was far more handsome than the red would have been. The person who had made the drawings of the alleged red bird was inept. The outline of its shape matched the blue birds that gathered on the big nut trees in our side yard. The sting forced me to notice their shapes and coloring with more attention and care.

But I am still left with a crying five-year-old boy with the unwanted attention of fifteen other five-year olds staring at him with fear in their eyes. The cruelty of adults is not entirely a learned behavior, but five-year old kids are perhaps more malleable than adults. Perhaps.

And finally, as a testimony to Creativity, a few words from the poet laureate:

THE PROBLEM OF DESCRIBING COLOR
by Robert Hass

If I said—remembering in summer,

The cardinal’s sudden smudge of red

In the bare gray winter woods—

If I said, red ribbon on the cocked straw hat

Of the girl with pooched-out lips

Dangling a wiry lapdog

In the painting by Renoir—

If I said fire, if I said blood welling from a cut—

Or flecks of poppy in the tar-grass scented summer air

On a wind-struck hillside outside Fano—

If I said, her one earring tugging at her silky lobe,

If she tells fortunes with a deck of fallen leaves

Until it comes out right—

Rouged nipple, mouth—

(How could you not love a woman

Who cheats at the Tarot?)

Red, I said. Sudden, red.

[Our Nichols Methodist Church is not pictured, but looked very much like the one that I found in Google images although the main door was set at an angle facing Longhill Road.]