Reddit mentions of Zen's Chinese Heritage: The Masters and Their Teachings

This book will help you! It has all of the zen masters for Chan Buddhism (Chinese) and all of their stories.

Zen's Chinese Heritage: The Masters and Their Teachings https://www.amazon.com/dp/0861716175/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_EnaEDbGNS4ZKE

Hakuin's autobiography would be a great place to start.

Heinrich Dumoulin's 2-volume "Zen Buddhism: A History" (Vol 1, Vol 2) is a classic, albeit somewhat dated. It has extended descriptions of the lives of some of the more notable teachers.

Andy Ferguson's "Zen's Chinese Heritage" is a very readable translation of the Lamp Records, providing some useful historical flavor. Although, the Lamp Records are where many of the major koan collections are drawn from, so if you're not into koans, ymmv.

I'll see if I can think of any others.

Huangbo said, “I didn’t say there is no Zen, just that there are no teachers. None of you see that although Zen master Mazu had eighty-four Dharma heirs, only two or three of them actually gained Mazu’s Dharma eye. One of them is Zen master Guizong of Mt. Lu. Home leavers must know what has happened in former times before they can start to understand. Otherwise you will be like the Fourth Ancestor’s student Niutou, speaking high and low but never understanding the critical point. If you possess the Dharma eye, then you can distinguish between true and heretical teachings and you’ll deal with the world’s affairs with ease. But if you don’t understand, and only study some words and phrases or recite sutras, and then put them in your bag and set off on pilgrimage saying ‘I understand Zen,’ then will they be of any benefit even for your own life and death? If you’re unmindful of the worthy ancients you’ll shoot straight into hell like an arrow. I know about you as soon as I see you come through the temple gate. How will you gain an understanding? You have to make an effort. It isn’t an easy matter. If you just wear a sheet of clothing and eat meals, then you’ll spend your whole life in vain. Clear-eyed people will laugh at you. Eventually the common people will just get rid of you. If you go seeking far and wide, how will this resolve the great matter? If you understand, then you understand. If you don’t, then get out of here! Take care!”

~

From: Zen's Chinese Heritage by Andy Ferguson

Book's Source: "Wudeng Huiyuan" (Compendium of Five Lamps)

you can make something or talk about it !

making something of the genuine laniakea thread is just really quite different . . !

as you say a well done commentary doesn't preclude some-one from being creative but the mumonkan commentary is an abortion !

there is a sort of master document that they took the cases from ! ?

in fact I think there are distinct authorship issues with the mumomkan, it may in fact be the work of a committee of monks based on their filtered recording and understanding !

recent scholarship and better availability of original records in recent years is exploding the view of a monolithic and simple scriptural ch'an tableau !

"The Wudeng Huiyuan (Compendium of Five Lamps) is the primary source for the translated passages in this book. That text, compiled by the monk Puji at Lingyin Monastery in Hangzhou during the early thirteenth century, is the distillation of five previous "lamp records," which provide traditional accounts of the lives of famous Zen teachers and their teachings (note that the "five lamps" is not a reference to the five traditional Zen schools). [...] First and foremost among the five lamp records compiled within the Compendium of the Five Lamps is a text entitled The Record of the Transmission of the Lamp of the Jingde Era, commonly called the Transmission of the Lamp. I have translated some passages in this book directly from that text. Often, passages from the Compendium of Five Lamps and the Transmission of the Lamp are the same or quite similar. However, since each text contains material that is omitted from the other, I sometimes cite the Transmission of the Lamp separately"

look at this poem of Sylvia plath's Lorelai, one of the greatest ever written to understand what "the real juice" is !