Anderl's Patriarch's Hall Collection: No "Buddhist monk"

祖堂集 Zutang ji, Patriarch's Hall Collection, https://terebess.hu/zen/Zutangji.html

We often hear a circular argument (from Buddhists) about how Zen is Buddhism because the word "Buddhism" appears in Zen texts... well, we know that there is no such word in Chinese. We know it is "Dharma of Zen Master Buddha".

Similarly, we were recently regaled with a similar argument about "Buddhist monk", 和尚 héshang Buddhist monk.

I rejected that argument on the same ground... no such thing as "Buddhist" in Zen times.

So, what's the word?

Anderl translated it as "Preceptor".

Via Latin from wikipedia: A preceptor (from Latin, "praecepto") is a teacher responsible to uphold a certain law or tradition, a precept.d

There you go.

Not Buddhist monk, but "Upholder of the Dharma of Zen Master Buddha".

Submitted May 25, 2020 at 02:23AM by ewk https://ift.tt/2zr3Pdo