Urs App on the treatment of Zen by Japanese and Western Buddhists

I only just started but it's a bit of a treasure trove. Get hype!

The mirror image of the Japanese scholarly attitude [nub note: he 
talked about the Japanese scholarly attitude as being very precise 
and diligent] is observed in talks and books by Japanese and Western Zen Masters 
who for the most part care little about philology. Even more strikingly, the flood
of Western publications about Chan/Zen contains many examples which
bespeak their authors' inability or reluctance to face the hardships
and joys of precise philological and historical research on primary
Chan sources; this, coupled with the extreme scarcity of reliable
translations and a good dose of fascination with "Oriental mystique" ,
inspires various authors to flights of imagination as to what Zen is
really about. The results abound on the shelves of the "Esoterica and
Magic" sections in our bookstores. Watever their views, most of these
Western authors exhibit at least a legitimate eagerness to find out
about the essence and meaning of Zen. But apart from the publications
of D.T. Suzuki 鈴木大拙， his contemporary Hisamatsu Shin' ichi 久松真
一，and their student and disciple Richard DeMartino, not many books
or articles have appeared in Western languages which address the content 
of Chan/Zen texts with authority. Such publications may not be
easy reading ，and inconsistencies of terminology (particularly in
Suzuki) may be a more or less serious drawback. But the more primary
Chan sources are critically studied, the more such authoritative writings 
prove helpful and enlightening. 

This was written in 1989. We're still struggling with these issues to this day, though the translations seem to be catching up. Progress marches on!

Submitted May 16, 2023 at 01:14PM by dota2nub https://ift.tt/QP9mioE