ExEAS Teaching Unit
Selected Teaching Resources on Zen Buddhism
Films

Principles and Practices of Zen Meditation. 120 min. 1988.
Available through Films for the Humanities and Sciences
http://www.films.com
($159.95 – VHS or DVD)

The film follows a group of monks in a Japanese monastery doing a continuous eight day session of Zen medditation.

The Still Point: Introduction to Zen Meditation. 53 min. 1995.
Available through Dharma Communications
http://www.dharma.net
($24.95 – VHS; $35.00 – DVD)

A useful video to gets student practicing zazen and thinking deeply about Zen.

 

Web Resources

Zen Buddhism WWW Virtual Library
http://www.ciolek.com/WWWVL-Zen.html

Part of the Buddhist Studies WWW Virtual Library (edited by T. Matthew Ciolek, The Australian National University; Joe Bransford Wilson, U. of North Carolina at Wilmington; and Jerome Ducor, Ethnographic Museum, Geneva), the site features a number of links to useful resources on Zen.

The Japanese Garden
http://academic.bowdoin.edu/zen/

A website hosted by Bowdoin College that provides floor plans, photographs, and descriptions for twenty-four Japanese Zen gardens. Also contains links to other useful resources.

Oxherding: Stages of Zen Practice
http://www.exeas.org/resources/oxherding.html

Images, with explanatory text, depicting the stages of practice leading to the enlightenment at which Zen (Chan) Buddhism aims.

Buddhist Scholars Information Network (H-Buddhism)
http://www.h-net.org/~buddhism/

Features links to academic programs, job openings, a discussion board, and book reviews related to Buddhism.

     

Recommended Readings

De Bary, Wm. Theodore, Donald Keene, George Tanabe, and Paul Varley. Sources of Japanese Tradition: From Earliest Times to 1600, Volume 1 . New York : Columbia University Press, 2001. See chapter 14 (306-335).

De Bary, Wm. Theodore, and Irene Bloom. Sources of Chinese Tradition: From Earliest Times to 1600, Volume 1 . New York : Columbia University Press, 2001. See the section on “The Meditation School” in Chapter 17 (491-525).

Dumoulin, Heinrich. Zen Buddhism: A History (Volume 1: India and China , Volume 2: Japan ). Translated by James W. Heisig and Paul Knitter. New York : Macmillan Publishing Co, 1988 (Volume I), 1990 (Vol. 2).

Fletcher, Tenshin and David Scott. Way of Zen . New York : St. Martin 's Press, 2001. pp.

Kapleau, Philip. The Three Pillars of Zen. New York : Harper and Row, 1966.

Kasulis, Thomas. Zen Action/Zen Person . Honolulu : University Press of Hawaii , 1981.

Loori, John Daido. Path of Enlightenment: Stages in a Spiritual Journey. Mt. Tremper , NY : Dharma Communictions Press, 1999.

Suzuki, D.T. Manual of Zen Buddhism. New York : Grove Press, Inc., 1960.