From: utzoo!decvax!decwrl!flairvax!ellis
Newsgroups: net.religion
Title: Re: Zen Buddhism
Article-I.D.: flairvax.106
Posted: Tue Apr 12 16:31:54 1983
Received: Fri Apr 15 04:39:40 1983
References: rdin.273

    I've just become interested in this Zen myself. To date, my
    favorite is "The History of Zen" (Blyth) which is 5 volumes.
    Unfortunately, I can only find the 1st two. What I like most
    about these books is that they deal with the teachings & people
    who actually created Zen, rather than somebody else's rehashing.

    I've checked some Suzuki, who is reputed to be the greatest
    modern author(-ity). Maybe I've seen the wrong books, but
    he talks too much about meditation and proper practice for
    my taste.

    Some say that the Zen of the past several hundred years has
    been inferior to that of a thousand years ago, say, at the
    time of Ummon (whose stuff is wonderfully anarchic and
    anti-orthodox). I'm not sure that translations exist, and
    have been learning chinese...