Keizan Recommendations

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  • Sekishi
    Dharma Transmitted Priest
    • Apr 2013
    • 5676
    #1

    Keizan Recommendations

    Hello all,

    I was wondering if anyone could recommend sources for learning more about Keizan ("the other founder" of the Soto school), particularly with respect to his efforts to reach out to laypeople and women. I just ordered the F. Cook translation of Keizan's Denkoroku (on the Treeleaf reading list), but didn't know if anyone had any additional sources to recommend.

    On an unrelated note, my apologies for being so absent from the forum lately. The "householder" life has made many demands lately. I've managed to keep up a daily practice, but I'm afraid I've been largely absent from the forums.

    Deep bows to all,
    Sekishi
    #SatToday
    Sekishi | 石志 | He/him | Better with a grain of salt, but best ignored entirely.
    Tags: None
    • Jundo
      Treeleaf Founder and Priest
      • Apr 2006
      • 40719
      #2
      Hi Sekishi,

      I would say that Keizan's most widely available writing in English is this ... ZAZEN YOJINKI: NOTES ON WHAT TO BE AWARE OF IN ZAZEN. There are several translations available online, but this seems to be one of the most readable ...
      Zazen Yojinki: Notes on What to be Aware of in Zazen | White Wind Zen Community
      http://www.wwzc.org/dharma-text/zazen-yojinki-notes-what-be-aware-zazen


      Keizan is credited with making Soto Zen in Japan more widely popular and widespread. There is some discussion in this classic history book of the period ...
      Sōtō Zen in Medieval Japan
      http://books.google.com/books?id=BnLOFwx1SpUC&q=keizan#v=snippet&q=keizan&f=false
      Explores how Soto monks between the 13th and 16th centuries developed new forms of monastic organization and Zen instructions and new applications for Zen rituals within lay life; how these innovations helped shape rural society; and how remnants of them remain in the modern Soto school, now the lar


      And for a rather dense (in prose style) and semi-imagined treatment of Keizan by a French historian and philosopher ...
      Visions of Power
      https://books.google.com/books?id=rbrtd0-WTwsC&dq=visions+of+power&source=gbs_navlinks_s
      Bernard Faure's previous works are well known as guides to some of the more elusive aspects of the Chinese tradition of Chan Buddhism and its outgrowth, Japanese Zen. Continuing his efforts to look at Chan/Zen with a full array of postmodernist critical techniques, Faure now probes the imaginaire, or mental universe, of the Buddhist Soto Zen master Keizan Jokin (1268-1325). Although Faure's new book may be read at one level as an intellectual biography, Keizan is portrayed here less as an original thinker than as a representative of his culture and an example of the paradoxes of the Soto school. The Chan/Zen doctrine that he avowed was allegedly reasonable and demythologizing, but he lived in a psychological world that was just as imbued with the marvelous as was that of his contemporary Dante Alighieri. Drawing on his own dreams to demonstrate that he possessed the magical authority that he felt to reside also in icons and relics, Keizan strove to use these "visions of power" to buttress his influence as a patriarch. To reveal the historical, institutional, ritual, and visionary elements in Keizan's life and thought and to compare these to Soto doctrine, Faure draws on largely neglected texts, particularly the Record of Tokoku (a chronicle that begins with Keizan's account of the origins of the first of the monasteries that he established) and the kirigami, or secret initiation documents.


      Gassho, J
      Last edited by Jundo; 12-29-2014, 07:03 PM.
      ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

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        • Jika
          Member
          • Jun 2014
          • 1337
          #3
          What about the Zazen Yojinki translation on terebess?
          Readable? (I'm having problem with the first link, sorry.)
          I've just browsed through, maybe it is helpful.

          螢山紹瑾 Keizan Jōkin (1268–1325): Denkō-roku
          http://terebess.hu/zen/denko-roku.html


          Gassho,
          Danny
          #sattoday
          治 Ji
          花 Ka

            Comment

            • Sekishi
              Dharma Transmitted Priest
              • Apr 2013
              • 5676
              #4
              Thank you Jundo. I will start with a copy of "Soto Zen in Medieval Japan" for the chapter on Keizan, but also because that just sounds interesting.

              BTW: Your first link (for Zazen Yojinki) is just back to this thread. I did find an excerpt from a Daido Loori translation here:
              Zazen Yojinki: Notes on What to be Aware of in Zazen | White Wind Zen Community
              http://www.wwzc.org/dharma-text/zazen-yojinki-notes-what-be-aware-zazen


              Thank you again.

              Gassho,
              Sekishi

              #SatToday
              Sekishi | 石志 | He/him | Better with a grain of salt, but best ignored entirely.

                Comment

                • Jundo
                  Treeleaf Founder and Priest
                  • Apr 2006
                  • 40719
                  #5
                  Originally posted by Danny B
                  What about the Zazen Yojinki translation on terebess?
                  Readable? (I'm having problem with the first link, sorry.)
                  I've just browsed through, maybe it is helpful.

                  螢山紹瑾 Keizan Jōkin (1268–1325): Denkō-roku
                  http://terebess.hu/zen/denko-roku.html


                  Gassho,
                  Danny
                  #sattoday
                  Hi Danny,

                  Yes, there are links to several different translations there. They each have their good points.

                  Gassho, J

                  SatToday
                  ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

                    Comment

                    • Jika
                      Member
                      • Jun 2014
                      • 1337
                      #6
                      Thank you for having a look at the link.

                      Gassho,
                      Danny
                      #sattoday
                      治 Ji
                      花 Ka

                        Comment

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