Zen and Zen Classics - Compiled and with Drawings By Frederick Franck

by R.H. Blyth, Frederick Franck (Illustrator)

Distills the main themes of Blyth's five volume interpretation of Zen philosophies, enlightenment, Zen literature and art, and the relationship between Zen and Christianity

Genres: Zen, Religion, Buddhism

Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Reginald Horace Blyth was an English author, interpreter, translator, devotee of Japanese culture and English Professor, having lived in Japan for eighteen years.

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blyth was a scholar and Zen disciple who lived for many years in Japan and wrote several books on Zen. A Japanese friend of mine knows a guy who studied with him in a WW2 internment camp. This is a wide-ranging compilation of writings on a variety of Zen matters. I first read this in college, and I remember getting something good out of it but being baffled by much of it as well.

Zen is to Buddhism what Quakerism is to Christianity: an essential and inward path to enlightenment. Zen's relations with the outside world and with its own teaching methods is therefore somewhat complicated and obscure. Zen is anti-worship, anti-bullshit, and contains much paradox and subtlety. I found a lot here that is provocative and points in the direction of enlightenment, but there is also a good deal that left me scratching my head.

A classic Zen teaching technique is the anecdote, and many of these seem to contain monks shouting "Kwatz!" and striking each other with sticks. At times it seems that Zen is little more than a nihilistic or paradoxical philosophy (how do things both exist and not exist simultaneously?) which contains little in the way of love or morality. Perhaps being raised in a mostly Christian society makes some of this a little hard to accept. It also seemed to me that Blyth's commentaries were not always designed for the beginner, and sometimes seemed to cloud the issues being discussed. To that Blyth might say that a little cloudiness is an important part of Zen.

Really understanding Zen is a non-endeavor which requires years of dedication and not just quickly reading a couple of books. I prefer my Buddhism with a little more color to it, a little more explanation. This is not to say that I disrespect Zen or doubt its value. It seeks to find the inexpressible, ecstatic here and now, that moment of balance, that feeling of integration with the universal mind - and we can all use some more of this.

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was expecting this to be a lot more classic text and a lot less commentary. The first few chapters were good but the commentary started to get obnoxious during the chapter on art and frequently had a western bias.

[Paul Kerschen]

There's plenty to disagree with, but Zen in English could use more books that put the provocation foremost.

[kleeklaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book when properly applied can substitute for the wooden cane of a zen master. it will make your head hurt. unfortunately my copy is from 1966 so i cant just give it a good throw and let nature dictate my random reading, instead i generally try to watch tv until someone says a number and then start reading from that page. it seems to work just as well as throwing it into my yard and reading from the open pages.