Chan/Chinese Zen Guides
Illuminating the Mind to See One’s Nature: The Root of Taoist Inner Practice
Illuminating the Mind to See One's Nature: The Root of Taoist Inner Practice An Excerpt from Taoist Inner Alchemy By Master Huang Yuanji & Ge Guolong Translate by Mattias Daly About This Excerpt Taoism and Buddhism, specifically Chan Buddhism, share many similar ideas including the concept and practice of inner cultivation, the nature of emptiness [...]Chan & Zen in 2023 Read More We published many books of interest from the Chan and Zen traditions in 2023 See our other Year in Review Guides: Zen and Chan | Tibetan Buddhism | More in Buddhism Yoga | Kids Books Buy 2 books for 20% off, 3 books for 30% off, 4 or [...]
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Kazuaki Tanahashi Learn More A Reader's Guide to Kazuaki Tanahashi, the poet, artist, activist and modern-day Zen master Related Reader Guides Zen in Japan Early Zen in Japan | Dogen: A Guide to His Works Rinzai Zen | Hakuin Ekaku: A Reader's Guide The Samurai and Zen | Zen up to the Meiji Restoration Chan [...]
Continue Reading >> Remembering J. C. Cleary We are saddened to share the news that J. C. (Chris) Cleary passed away on February 25, 2023. Chris, along with his brother Thomas, were pioneers in bringing some of the most important texts from East Asian Buddhism and beyond into readable, accurate English. It began with the brothers' collaboration on [...]
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Zen and Chan in 2022 Read More We published several books and audiobooks on Zen and Chan Buddhism in 2022 See our other Year in Review Guides: Theravada/Pali/Insight | Zen and Chan | Tibetan Buddhism Yoga | Personal Development | Kids Books We are very happy to share with you a look back at our [...]
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Xuanzang Learn More A Reader's Guide to the great pilgrim of Buddhism See Also: Profiles of early Indian Mahayana figures | Tibetan Masters of the 8th Century | Tibetan Masters of the 10th-11th Centuries The Works of the Chan and Zen Patriarchs | The Works of Zen in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) The Works of Zen in the Song Dynasty (960 [...]
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Chan, Zen, & Pure Land in 2021 Read More We published many books of interest from the East Asian Mahayana traditions in 2021. Here is a recap. See our other Year in Review Guides: Theravada/Pali/Insight | Chan, Zen, Mahayana | Tibetan Buddhism Receive a 30% discount on these titles through January 2nd using code 2021YE [...]
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Last week we received the very sad news that Thomas Cleary, one of the greatest translators of our time, passed away on June 20, 2021. Thomas Cleary (1949–2021) was the twentieth century's most prolific translator of Asian classics to English, translating and introducing over eighty works from Chinese, Japanese, Sanskrit, Pali, Bengali, Arabic, and Old [...]
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The Buddhist Translations of Thomas Cleary: A Reader’s Guide
Thomas Cleary (1949—2021) was one of the twentieth century’s greatest translators of Asian classics. He was extremely prolific, translating and authoring countless works. Shambhala Publications has published over sixty. His books have sold millions of copies and his translations have in turn been translated into over twenty languages worldwide. His first published project, in collaboration [...]
A Parable for Silent Illumination An excerpt from Silent Illumination Natural awakening is inherent within everyone—it is not something produced through practice. Hongzhi eloquently described it as the “vacant and open field,” the “lucid lake,” our “original home.” The point of Chan practice, then, is to regain our original freedom by clearing away our emotional [...]
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The Works of Zen in the Song Dynasty This is part of a series of articles on the arc of Zen thought, practice, and history, as presented in The Circle of the Way: A Concise History of Zen from the Buddha to the Modern World. You can start at the beginning of this [...]
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The Works of the Chan & Zen Patriarchs This is part of a series of articles on the arc of Zen thought, practice, and history, as presented in The Circle of the Way: A Concise History of Zen from the Buddha to the Modern World. You can start at the beginning of this [...]
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The Works of Zen in the Tang Dynasty This is part of a series of articles on the arc of Zen thought, practice, and history, as presented in The Circle of the Way: A Concise History of Zen from the Buddha to the Modern World. You can start at the beginning of this [...]
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The Great Koan Collections This is part of a series of articles on the arc of Zen thought, practice, and history, as presented in The Circle of the Way: A Concise History of Zen from the Buddha to the Modern World. You can start at the beginning of this series or simply explore [...]
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Zen Buddhism: A Reader's Guide to the Great Works There have been surprisingly few clear introductions to the full range of the East Asian tradition of what is popularly commonly referred to, in its Japanese variant, as Zen Buddhism but also known as Chan, Soen, and Tien in original Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese. All these [...]
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Taoist Influences on Ch’an Meditation An Excerpt from China Root Ch’an practice was not simply about cultivating an abstract understanding of Taoist ontology/cosmology and the nature of consciousness; it was about actually living that understanding as a matter of immediate experience. And at the center of Ch’an practice was meditation. Indeed, Ch’an (禪), a transliteration [...]
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Chan Master Sheng Yen (1930–2009) was a widely respected Taiwanese Chan (Chinese Zen) master who taught extensively in the West during the last thirty-one years of his life. He had numerous teaching centers throughout North America, as well throughout the world. He co-led retreats with the Dalai Lama, and he is the author of numerous [...]
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The Six Paramitas Learn More The Six Paramitas, or "Perfections," are a fundamental set of teachings for Mahayahana Buddhism Statue of Bodhisattva Guan Yin (Avalokiteshvara) The six paramitas, or transcendent perfections, are an essential concept in the practice of Mahayana Buddhism. They are so fundamental in fact that the “Vehicle of the Perfections” is a [...]
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The Heart Sutra: A Reader's Guide This is part of a series of articles on the arc of Zen thought, practice, and history, as presented in The Circle of the Way: A Concise History of Zen from the Buddha to the Modern World. You can start at the beginning of this series or [...]
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Poems of the Legendary Hermit Hanshan | An Excerpt from The Complete Cold Mountain
Poems of the Legendary Hermit Hanshan The Universality of Hanshan’s Writing Though the poems in this collection were written more than twelve hundred years ago, poetry that expresses our common human experience with the unflinching wisdom and truth found in Hanshan’s writing has a way of collapsing time and distance, and even cultural differences, because it [...]
Yunmen in Context Setting the Stage for Chan Long before Buddhism arrived in China around the beginning of the Common Era, Chinese thinkers taught ideas whose orientation was of striking similarity to some central tenets of that foreign religion that had yet to arrive. These teachings, ascribed to the ancient sages Laozi (Lao-tzu) and Zhuangzi [...]
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Buddhist Poetry: A Reader Guide Read More Shambhala Publications publishes numerous books of Buddhist poetry, and we’ve gathered some of our favorites here. Jump to sections on this page: Recent Releases | Chan and Zen Poetry | Indian Poetry | Tibetan Poetry | Southeast Asian Poetry | Contemporary Buddhist Poetry Related Books and Articles Recent [...]
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Visitation-Land Dog Nature | An Excerpt from No-Gate Gateway
A Dog Too Has Buddha-Nature A monk asked Master Visitation-Land: “A dog too has Buddha-nature, no?” “Absence,” Land replied. No-Gate’s Comment To penetrate the depths of Ch’an, you must pass through the gateway of our ancestral patriarchs. And to fathom the mysteries of enlightenment, you must cut off the mind-road completely. If you don’t pass [...]
One of the commonalities of the many traditions within Buddhism is the centrality of the messages in the Buddha’s very first teaching in Sarnath, shortly after attaining enlightenment in Bodhgaya. He held back from actually teaching the first people he met including the Burmese traders (who tradition tells us brought back some of his hair, [...]
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One of the greatest joys for me as an editor at Shambhala Publications is when I work on books by people I have long admired. This was most definitely the case when Shambhala had the good fortune to become William Scott Wilson’s publisher several years ago. I first encountered his work when I was a [...]
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Pointing to the Heart of the Buddhadharma: An Interview with Guo Gu, author of The Essence of Chan
Shambhala: Can you tell us something about your background-how you encountered the Buddhadharma? Guo Gu: I first learned meditation when I was in Taiwan at age four. A meditation master named Guangqin taught me how to sit in meditation, and I thought it was fun to copy what he was doing. Later, my family immigrated [...]
Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, author of Into the Heart of Life , Reflections of a Mountain Lake, and Cave in the Snow, and who is profiled in the recently released Dakini Power, just returned from a pilgrimage in China, following the footsteps of Xuanzang and visiting the Four Sacred Mountains and four Buddhist rock grottoes. [...]
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