Yu Readings of the Gateless Barrier

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-0-231-55695-8
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 368 Seiten

Reihe: Columbia Readings of Buddhist Literature

The Gateless Barrier is one of the most cherished yet also one of the most enigmatic Chan or Zen texts of East Asian Buddhism. Compiled by the Chinese Chan master Wumen Huikai in 1228, it contains forty-eight Zen stories of spiritual awakening called “public cases” or gong’ans (known as koans in Japanese and kongans in Korean). This book presents a new English translation with close readings and creative analyses of the Gateless Barrier from both scholarly and practitioner perspectives, allowing a range of readers to venture into the rich world of Chan and Zen.

Specialist contributors offer insights on historical context, literary structure, philosophical implications, and gendered dimensions, as well as the embodied practice and contemporary experience of the stories in the Gateless Barrier. By bringing together academic expertise with experiential insight from Zen teachers, this book provides a grounded and nuanced account of how the Gateless Barrier has been—and continues to be—practiced and lived in China, Korea, Japan, and the West.

An innovative and sophisticated study, this book is ideal for university classroom use, and it also makes the Gateless Barrier accessible to other first-time readers, Buddhist practitioners, and scholars.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Yu, Jimmy

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Buddhismus Zen-Buddhismus
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Buddhismus Buddhismus: Heilige Texte & Traditionsliteratur
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Nicht-Westliche Philosophie Indische & Asiatische Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments
A Note to the Reader
Introduction: The Gateless Barrier in Context, by Jimmy Yu
1. The Gong’an Tradition in the Gateless Barrier as a “Special Transmission Outside the Teaching,” by Albert Welter
2. Dahui Zong’gao and His Impact on the Gateless Barrier, by Jimmy Yu
3. The Gateless Barrier and the Locus of Truth, by Jin Y. Park
4. Paradox in the Gateless Barrier, by Robert H. Sharf
5. Testing, Contesting, Besting: Ambiguity in Gong’an Dialogues, by Steven Heine
6. A Gate of Their Own?: Women in Wumen’s World, by Natasha Heller
7. Public Cases in Korean Son Buddhism, byJuhn Y. Ahn
8. From Secrecy to Openness: The Gateless Barrier in Premodern Japanese Zen, by Marta Sanvido
9. Koan Kufu: Embodying the Koan in Rinzai Zen Practice, by Meido Moore
10. On Koan Training, by Jan Chozen Bays
Translation of the Gateless Barrier
A Survey of English Translations of the Gateless Barrier
Cross-Reference to Citations of the Gateless Barrier
Character Glossary
Bibliography
Contributors
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Jimmy Yu is Sheng Yen Professor of Chinese Buddhist Studies at the Florida State University. His recent books include Sanctity and Self-Inflicted Violence in Chinese Religions, 1500–1700 (2012) and Reimagining Chan Buddhism: Sheng Yen and the Creation of the Dharma Drum Lineage of Chan (2021). Known as Guo Gu in Buddhist circles, he is also a Chan teacher and publishes under that name.