Zen Masters of Japan: The Second Step East

by Richard Bryan McDaniel

Zen Masters of Japan is the second book in a series that traces Zen's profoundly historic journey as it spread eastward from China and Japan, toward the United States. Following Zen Masters of China, this book concentrates on Zen's significant passage through Japan. More specifically, it describes the lineage of the great teachers, the Zen monk pioneers who set out to enlighten an island ready for an inner transformation based on compassionate awareness.While the existing Buddhist establishment in Japan met early Zen pioneers like Dogen and Eisai with fervent resistance, Zen Buddhism ultimately persevered and continued to become further transformed in its passage through Japan. The Japanese culture and Japanese Buddhism practices further deepened and strengthened Zen training by combining it with a variety of esoteric contemplative arts--the arts of poetry, the tea ceremony, calligraphy, and archery. Zen Masters of Japan chronicles this journey with each Zen master profiled. The book shows how the new practices soon gained popularity among all walks of life--from the lowly peasant, offering a hope of reincarnation and a better life; to the Samurai warrior due to its casual approach to death; to the ruling classes, challenging the intelligentsia because of its scholarly roots.A collection of Zen stories, meditation, and their wisdom, Zen Masters of Japan also explores the elusive state of 'No Mind' achieved in Japan that is so fundamental to Zen practices today.

Genres: Zen, Philosophy, Religion, Buddhism

323 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 5, 2013

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Zen stories continue in this delightful companion volume to the Zen Masters of China. In addition, you get a good deal of the political wrangling of the enlightened Zen masters as they struggle to dominate their schools and monasteries, wrangle with the court and its occasional attentions, and strive to outdo each other in Total Zenness. It's a wonderful reminder that, after all, they are as human as the rest of us even as they whack each other with sticks and achieve enlightenment.

[Seth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Richard Bryan McDaniel’s Zen Masters of Japan: The Second Step East is clearly a labor of love — part of a three book series (Zen Masters of China, Zen Masters of Japan, and the upcoming Zen Masters of the West) that presents a chronicle of the lives of some of the most important Japanese Zen teachers.  The book begins — after a brief prologue in China—  with the earliest Japanese pilgrims who brought Zen from China to Japan, and concludes with Soyen Shaku’s 1893 visit to the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago. The book’s prose is clear, clean and uncluttered, and a pleasure to read. The wisdom, poetry, and wit of the Zen ancestors  — Japanese Zen patriarchs like Dogen, Hakuin, Basho and Ryokan — comes shining through.  McDaniel frames the lives of these Zen masters in their cultural and historical context, so that the reader painlessly absorbs a reasonable amount of Japanese culture and history along the way. Who is this book right for?  It occupies a peculiar niche.  It contains too much information for someone just casually interested in Zen, and yet may not be scholarly enough for someone who’s already well versed in it — its ideal readers will be Zen enthusiasts/practitioners who know a little but not a lot about Japanese Zen history.  As a reader, I’m somewhere in the middle of this continuum, so that I found myself both thankful to McDaniel for learning about Zen figures I’d never known and delighted by various nuggets of Zen lore and mondo (teacher-student dialogues) I’d either never known or had long forgotten, but also frustrated by the book’s shortcomings.  As a summation of stories already contained in a number of well-known English language publications (e.g., Ferguson, Dumoulin, Cleary, Suzuki, and Reps), the book lacks new scholarship, or a familiarity with their original Japanese sources. It often fails to distinguish between fact, as an historian might define it, and lore as it comes down through the Zen tradition — what’s biography and what’s hagiography.  It also presents Zen as Zen would like to present itself, without delving critically into what’s lost and what’s gained as Japanese Zen bows to political and economic pressures from shoguns, samurai, and the nationalist Meiji restorers.  And where, by the way, are the Zen matriarchs?  Those criticisms aside, if you’re a Zen practitioner just beginning your journey — and you aren’t too finicky about what’s history and what’s lore — this book is a painless way to begin to familiarize yourself with Zen’s Japanese history.  

[Joshua Stevens · Rating 5 out of 5]

A casual walk through the history of Zen in Japan. This would serve as a good introductory text to any interested in the subject.

[Catherine Pawasarat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent survey of the history of Zen Buddhism in Japan. Will surely refer to it again and again.

[Timothy Snow · Rating 5 out of 5]

As with "Zen Masters of China," McDaniel tells a story of the evolution of zen Buddhism as it finds its place in the life of a new culture. He follows a generally chronological path but focuses primarily on groundbreaking teachers and the subsequent generations who followed and adapted their teachings: each of these lineages has its own chapter, which helped me as a reader to compartmentalize enough to avoid confusion. His writing is straightforward and unembellished, and the logic which frames his progression within each chapter was, for me, breathtakingly refreshing. This was essential for me in order to avoid being overwhelmed by the multi-focal progression of zen through the decades.

McDaniel tells a deceptively simple story which does not force the reader into confusion and conflict; instead, it invites (without directing) the reader to re-explore some of the previous chapters, creating a deeper sense of appreciation of how the essence of Buddhism is pure enough to support different iterations and interpretations as it encounters new people and new perspectives. Instead of being a "way of knowing" that forces itself on the listener, it felt to me, at least through McDaniel's pen, that zen will meander alongside me until it is noticed and the invitation to participate is accepted.

Two things ultimately stood out long after I finished the book. The first is that, through his stories of the actions and writings of various teachers, and the reactions of those around them, McDaniel gently presented tenets of zen at their surface, but in a way that invited deeper personal exploration. At the risk of sounding pretentious, I often felt I was looking at the surface of a pool of water that invited me to dive in. What a lovely way of teaching!

The second residual appreciation was that McDaniel avoided sharing his own insights and beliefs, allowing the story to tell itself. In retrospect, this may be why I felt such clarity from the story. I don't think I could do this myself, so I can say that I was occasionally in awe of this style of sharing. The story-teller himself is an exemplar of the unforced humility of someone who is able to "remember the self and forget the self." I was deeply affected by this book.

[Sasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is a part of a series on Zen Masters, and as the second part it dwells on the Masters from Japan.
It is, in my opinion, a good introduction and has a lot of little stories that make you want to know more about these patriarchs and show a lot of appreciation towards their teachings.
However, to me as an Art History student, the lack of Japanese sources is rather telling as well as a lack of critical examination on what Zen Buddhism is or how the stories and lore behind the Zen Masters are just taken for granted.

It is, however, a good compilation of Zen Masters you might want to read more about, so as an initial reading it is light and informative, but also humorous and respectful.

[Leo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good introduction with many famous tales and anecdotes from the world of Japanese Zen. I am sure there are other books to be recommended on this subject but I found this to be well written and certainly a good place to start.

[Rui Da silva pinto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book, I enjoyed reading this book immensely, there were some chapters that I was not as interested in reading, but overall a fantastic read, well researched, well written and well structured.