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Title:     Baek Jang's principles of sitting zen
Creator: Baizhang Huaihai, Zen Master, 720–814 ; Row, Jess tr.
Catalan subject: Budisme zen Ensenyament
English subject: Zen Buddhism Teachings
Abstract:  Translator’s Note: Principles of Sitting Zen is a section of the Baizhang Qinggui, or The Clear Rule of Baizhang, a twelth-century (Yuan dynasty) version of the original temple rules written by Zen Master Baizhang Huaihai (Baek Jang) in the ninth century, near the end of the Tang dynasty. The original text no longer exists. Baizhang was a disciple of Mazu Daoyi (Ma Jo) and the teacher of Huangbo, who gave transmission to Linji. According to Zen Master Seung’s Sahn’s lineage line, our Kwan Um tradition passes through Baizhang, Huangbo and the Chinese Linji school, entering Korea with Zen Master T’aego in the twelth century. The Baizhang Qinggui, however, is the source of temple rules not only for one lineage line but for all Zen practitioners, in China, Japan, and Korea. It helped create the “Zen school” as a distinct tradition and institution within East Asian Buddhism. Most famously, Baizhang emphasized that monastics in the Zen tradition should engage in physical labor, including the cultivation of food, which was an enormous cultural shift away from the earlier Buddhist emphasis on surviving entirely through donations from the lay population. Baizhang was also the first to insist that Zen temples should include separate dharma halls for meditation, and that monks should adhere to a fixed schedule of practice, labor, chanting, and formal meals, with as little sleep as possible—the same kind of schedule we use today in our retreats. The Baizhang Qinggui is markedly different from other well-known Chinese Buddhist texts of this era (such as The Blue Cliff Record or the Mumonkwan) because it is concerned not with biography or teaching stories but with concrete instructions for day-to-day life. “Principles of Sitting Zen” is, to my knowledge, one of the earliest texts offering explicit directions for sitting meditation practice in the Zen tradition. Although there are many translations of Baizhang’s biography, speeches, and dialogues, as far as I know, this particular text has never before appeared in English.
Source:  Primary Point 2008, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 10
Document type:  info:eu-repo/semantics/article ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
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