In this radical new translation of a Ch’an (Zen) classic, discover the Taoist roots of “carefree ease,” the effortless joy of an enlightened mind in harmony with all of nature.

This twelfth-century collection of one hundred kung-ans, or koans, is an essential text for students of Ch’an and Zen Buddhism. These miniature masterpieces of Chinese literature—brief records of enigmatic encounters between teacher and student—offer a unique way of penetrating directly into the essence of Ch’an teaching, and Hinton affords readers an opportunity to experience these koans in English like never before by returning us to the original understanding of its zany storytelling and profound wisdom. Paring away the later commentaries that are usually presented with these koans, Hinton lets the original stories shine on their own, revealing themselves as nothing less than poetic expressions of the awakened mind. A far cry from the transcendence of life-and-death that typifies the traditional Buddhist goal of nirvana, this awakening is distinctly earthy and grounded in the rhythms of nature, shaped by the centuries of Taoist tradition that preceded Ch’an. “Carefree ease,” writes Hinton, “is to move through life with the ‘profound tranquility’ of the Cosmos itself as it unfurls through its perennial transformations.”

This is the final volume in David Hinton’s momentous project to translate the three classic koan collections of Ch’an Buddhism. The other two volumes are The Blue-Cliff Record and No-Gate Gateway.