The benefits of lesser known Zen compilation texts

I heard Cleary is sleeping rough these days, so I'd like to help him out by recommending some of the perhaps lesser known compilation texts to those wayfarers that may to date have limited their study to the 'big books' of Zen compiled by Masters (e.g., BCR), and those texts including the collected sayings or lectures of a single ZM.

In particular, I have Cleary's 'Chan Talks', 'The Measuring Tap' and 'Zen Essence' in mind.

The latter, Zen Essence, specifically, is quite different from most of the literature out there, in that it is divided into sections by all of our favourite characters, then firing a number of standalone paragraphs under separate headings at you. It's almost like a 'best of' quote compilation.

Now, to fend of them interweb swords right away, I am not discounting the benefits of the longer lecture/commentary/verse or compiled sermon texts, they are so well loved for a reason, but here are a few proposed benefits of mixing it up:

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1. It contrasts the various styles of ZMs really well, you get a number of paragraphs for each right in succession (rather than a single case, and then perhaps another one involving the same ZM later, without continuity, like in the BCR) - enough to get a glimpse of personality and approach, not so much that you are being overexposed to one teaching source only (as can be the case when reading one ZM for hours, since this can become an issue when the originally addressed audience is at a completely different stage of zen study than oneself, so one can spend a lot of time on teachings not relevant to one's frame of mind, aiding confusion).
2. They are not cryptic excerpts but obviously picked for their pertinence and clarity. I dare say a lot of it can stand alone without much context, which can be refreshing after emerging from long sermons laden with culturally distant metaphors and Buddhist this and that. The curation has a modern audience in mind, without detracting anything from the quality of content. Want to liberate a friend? Don't whack him or her with the Book of Serenity.
3. You can easily read a few pages any time of the day or night, without having to settle in for it. You can also approach it by reading just one a day whilst making tea and contemplating it. This may help shift the focus of study from reading reading reading (which can become idle) to reading for a much smaller fraction of zen study than contemplation and application, rather than the other way around.
4. There is stuff in there that I have not come across anywhere else, despite having read the featured ZMs before. One disadvantage is that the sources are not properly disclosed, which may rub some longer term students the wrong way. Interestingly, even the Foyan excerpts, clearly from Instant Zen, are worded differently, despite being from the same author.
5. The translator's afterword is substantial, and whilst grains of salt are to be taken alongside any modern commentary (purists take their advice only from the indirect mouth of dead Chinese men), some may find a bit of that refreshing as food for thought. Why not get it from the people that are into this stuff enough to painstakingly translate from traditional Chinese, something a Chinese-born millennial couldn't even do for you today.
6. Lastly, what better to further help triangulate the ineffable message than a lot of diverse and concise data points? Perhaps the best zen books leave you with a sense of 'okay, enough, time to stop gobbling flawed expedient devices and do the work instead'.

Now send Cleary some money.

Submitted August 26, 2020 at 03:56AM by Coinionaire https://ift.tt/3leknZj