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Hakuin Ekaku - Complete Poison Blossoms from a Thicket of Thorn: The Zen Records of Hakuin Ekaku

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Hakuin Ekaku Complete Poison Blossoms from a Thicket of Thorn: The Zen Records of Hakuin Ekaku
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Complete Poison Blossoms from a Thicket of Thorn: The Zen Records of Hakuin Ekaku: summary, description and annotation

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Following his translation of just over half the original text in 2014, Norman Waddell presents the complete teaching record of Zen master Hakuin, now available in English with extensive explanations, notes, and even the wry, helpful comments that students attending Hakuins lectures inscribed in their copies of the textWith this volume, Norman Waddell completes his acclaimed translation of the teaching record of one of the greatest Zen masters of all time, Hakuin Ekaku (16851769). Hakuin lived at a time when Japanese Buddhism as a whole and his own Rinzai sect in particular were at low ebb. Through tremendous force of character and creative energy, he initiated a reform movement that swept the country, and today, all Rinzai Zen masters trace their lineage through him. This outcome is all the more extraordinary because Hakuins base of operations was a small temple in the country town of Hara, where he grew up, not in one of the nations political, cultural, or commercial centers.This book represents the first full publication of the Keis Dokuzui in any foreign language. Inspired by the enthusiastic reception that greeted his 2014 selections from the text, Waddell returned to work and now gives us the opportunity to examine the entirety of Hakuins record and to benefit as never before from the example and instruction of this exuberant personality and remarkable teacher. Poison Blossoms contains a highly diverse set of materials: formal and informal presentations to monastic and lay disciples, poems, practice instructions, inscriptions for paintings, comments on koans, letters, and funeral orations. While most items are brief, easily read in a quick sitting, the book also includes extended commentaries on the Heart Sutra, one of Mahayana Buddhisms central texts; on the famously difficult Five Ranks of Tung-shan; and on the accomplishments of his eminent predecessor Gud Tshoku.Having devoted himself for more than three decades to the study and translation of Hakuins works, Norman Waddell is peerless when it comes to conveying into English the vital, sometimes elegant, often earthy voice of this outstanding teacher. His command of the subject enables Waddell to elucidate the vast array of idioms and images that Hakuin employed to enliven his poetry and prosehistorical and mythological elements, street slang, doctrinal and cultural allusions that would otherwise place these writings beyond the grasp of anyone but a specialist. Waddells five previous Hakuin translations, each important in its own right, can now be recognized as stepping stones to this towering achievement.ReviewPoison Blossoms from a Thicket of Thorn is an authoritative volume translated from Japanese by Norman Waddell; an essential set of texts from the great master Hakuin Ekaku (1685-1769). Hakuins tireless teaching and writing reinvigorated the ancient Rinzai line of Zen from China which is now a world-wide force. This book serves to illuminate his dry, edgy, practical and often funny way of teaching Zen in the contemporary world. Gary Snyder, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Turtle IslandPraise for The Old Tea Seller: Life and Zen Poetry in 18th Century KyotoNorman Waddell has brought us an important Japanese Zen poet who has been too long neglected. The biography is detailed and informative but Waddell has gone further and has translated all of Baisaos published verse (including some taken from holograph manuscript) and prose, as well as many of Baisaos letters and verse This book will stand as the definitive work on Baisao for many years. The Zen Site[A] delightful and exquisite volume Norman Waddell has done a marvelous job pulling all of this material together. Spirituality and PracticeAbout the AuthorHAKUIN ZENJI was born in Hara, Japan, on January 18, 1685. He began monastic studies as a teenager, studied with the great master Shju Rjin, and developed his teaching over a long career spanning more than fifty years. An enormously popular teacher during his lifetime, he died a few days short of his eighty-fourth birthday, in Hara where he had begun, and is said to have left more than 90 dharma heirs. NORMAN WADDELL was born in Washington, D.C., in 1940. He has published more than a dozen books and is considered one of the finest translators of Japanese sacred texts of our time.

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The Publisher is grateful for the support provided by Rolex Japan Ltd to - photo 1

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The Publisher is grateful for the support provided by Rolex Japan Ltd to underwrite this edition. And our thanks to Bruce R. Bailey, a great friend to this project.
Copyright 2017 by Norman Waddell

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ISBN: 978-1-61902-931-6

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Hakuin, 16861769, author.
Title: Complete poison blossoms from a thicket of thorn : the zen records of Hakuin Ekaku / Hakuin Zenji ; translated by Norman Waddell.
Other titles: Keiso dokuzui. English
Description: Berkeley, CA : Counterpoint Press, [2017]
Identifiers: LCCN | ISBN 9781619029316 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Zen BuddhismEarly works to 1800.
Classification: LCC BQ9399.E594 K4513 2017 | DDC 294.3/927dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017007544

Jacket designed by Kelly Winton

Book composition by VJB/Scribe

COUNTERPOINT
2560 Ninth Street, Suite 318
Berkeley, CA 94710

www.counterpointpress.com

Printed in the United States of America
Distributed by Publishers Group West

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To the Memory of R. H. Blyth

C ONTENTS

COMPLETE POISON BLOSSOMS FROM A THICKET OF THORN

C HRONOLOGY OF H AKUINS L IFE
1685Born to the Nagasawa family of Hara, a village in Suruga province that served as a post station on the Tokaido road linking Edo and Kyoto
169598Performs austerities and sutra recitations to allay fears of hell
1699Ordained by Tanrei Soden at the Rinzai temple Shoin-ji next to the family home, receiving the name Ekaku, Wise Crane. Becomes student of Sokudo Fueki at Daisho-ji in Numazu
170317Extended Zen pilgrimage around the central and western Japanese provinces
1704Studies literature with Bao Rojin in Mino province
1705Resumes pilgrimage; visits temples in western Japan and Shikoku
1707Returns to Mino to nurse Priest Bao, devoting nights to zazen. At Shoin-ji during catastrophic eruption of nearby Mount Fuji
170810Enlightenment at Eigan-ji in Echigo province. Deepens attainment with eight months of study under Shoju Rojin in Shinano province. Resumes pilgrimage; feels lack of freedom in everyday life. Zen sickness appears; he overcomes it using a therapeutic meditation learned from the hermit Hakuyu
1712Nurses Sokudo, devotes spare moments to zazen and study of Zen records
171314Visits Obaku priest Egoku; enters training hall of Inryo-ji, Soto temple in Izumi province
171516Solitary practice at Mount Iwataki (Mino); returns at ailing fathers request to reside at Shoin-ji
1717Installed as priest of Shoin-ji; continues post-satori training
1718Adopts name Hakuin. Begins to lecture on Zen texts
1726Experiences decisive enlightenment while reading Lotus Sutra
172747Instructs students at Shoin-ji
1740First large lecture meeting on the Record of Hsu-tang attended by four hundred people; recognized as a leading Zen teacher
1743First book, Sokko-roku kaien-fusetsu, is published
1747ca. 1760While teaching at Shoin-ji travels extensively to teach at other temples; publishes many works in Japanese and Chinese
1751Lectures on Blue Cliff Record at Yogen-in subtemple of Myoshin-ji headquarters temple in Kyoto
1758Publishes Gudos (Precious Mirrors) Lingering Radiance. Purchases Ryutaku-ji site in Mishima
1759Poison Blossoms from a Thicket of Thorn and Supplement published this year or next
1760Appoints Torei abbot of newly built Ryutaku-ji
1763Physical debility increases
1764Suio Genro installed as successor at Shoin-ji
1766Announces will no longer receive students. Autobiographical Wild Ivy published
1767Lectures on Poison Blossoms from a Thicket of Thorn at Ryutaku-ji
1768Lectures on Supplement to Poison Blossoms from a Thicket of Thorn. Condition deteriorates; entrusts Suio with personal affairs; dies on eleventh day of the twelfth month
I NTRODUCTION

T HIS BOOK IS a complete annotated translation of Poison Blossoms from a Thicket of Thorn (Japanese title: Keis dokuzui ), a work in nine volumes that contains oral and written teachings that Zen master Hakuin (16851768) delivered or otherwise presented to his students. It comprises material spanning a period of roughly fifty years, the earliest pieces from Hakuins mid-twenties, when he was still engaged in his Zen pilgrimage, and the latest from his early seventies, when Poison Blossoms was compiled. Two supplements are also translated, Supplement to Poison Blossoms from a Thicket of Thorn ( Keis-dokuzui shi ) and Guds Lingering Radiance ( Hkan Ish ), both published at around the same time as the main collection.

Iida Tin (18631937), one of the most highly respected Japanese Zen masters of the modern period, with strong roots in both St and Rinzai traditions, has this to say about Poison Blossoms:

Anyone who wants to understand Master Hakuin must read Poison Blossoms from a Thicket of Thorn . Half-baked Zen teachers who disparage Hakuin without having read it are like blind men groping at an elephant.... Although as the title indicates it contains much material that is extremely difficult to grasp, how can anyone claiming to be a descendant of Hakuin really know him unless he has read this work? I have always kept my own copy close at hand. It gives me the feeling that I am living together with the old master ( Zeny ni ataeru no sho, A Book for My Zen Friends, pp. 3056).

In addition to being the longest of Hakuins many publications, Poison Blossoms is arguably his most important as well. Statements Hakuin makes in his letters everyone is urging me to deliver lectures on my records in Kyoto [as soon as they are published].... It will help to make them more widely known are an indication of the high expectations he and his followers had for the work. The great effort he took to get it into print may also be seen to reflect an awareness of its significance as a literary legacy: a sense that this might be the work by which later generations would judge him.

Like his contemporary Samuel Johnson, who opined that every mans life can be best written by himself, Hakuin was apparently convinced that the surest way to guarantee that these important records of his teaching career were published in the right manner was to publish them himself. In contrast to most of Hakuins other writings, which were aimed primarily at his contemporaries, Poison Blossoms and the Chronological Biography of Zen Master Hakuin, both of which began being compiled in his seventies, can be said to have their sights on posterity.

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