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Zen Letters: Teachings of Yuanwu

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Yuanwu (Japanese "Engo", 1063-1135) was the Chinese Zen Master who compiled the great koan collection, "The Blue Cliff Record". This volume presents Yuanwu's wisdom in a much more accessible form: it is a selection from his letters to monks & nuns and lay disciples. This is a Zen Master speaking directly and intimately with the people who depend on him for spiritual guidance. Few writings of the classical Zen tradition are more straightforward and uncomplicated than Yuanwu's words in these letters to his disciples.

This book is one of great treasures of Zen--or for that matter, spiritual--literature. Yuanwu was one of the greatly enlightened beings, a true Buddha. Most Zen masters, for good reason, couched their teachings in language designed to help "wake up" their students, but which is usuually impenetrable to all of us who are decidedly on the unenlightened side. But in this marvelous book, Yuanwu speaks directly to Zen students in a way that both reveals his own transcendent state while giving spiritual guidance in earthy, practical, yet utterly inspiring words. This is a book that I dip into often for inspiration and guidance. I highly recommend it to you.

Yüan-wu, in Japanese Engo, was the Sung Dynasty Master who wrote the commentaries to the koans and verses of the "Blue Cliff Record". He has bent over backwards to help the reader, but at first they can seem baffling, if not infuriating. But you expect the "BCR" to be a lifetime struggle: most of its insights will only ever be accessible to those who can meditate at least 6-8 hours a day, every day (though the ideal is meditation without pause, while working, washing the dishes, eating, sleeping...)

This book is much more approachable, a selection of letters of advice written to his lay followers. The contents are altogether more mundane: about attitude and perseverance, meditation-practice and dealing with day-to-day life. These are not chatty, casual letters, they're concentrated teachings: this book is slim but contains nothing but treasures from cover to cover. They were written for a much more static and structured society, so how far they can be applied to today's accelerating world is a matter for personal judgement.

The translation is in the Cleary house style, certain words seized on as ad hoc technical terms. Treat with caution. Room for one example. "Conditioning", in Buddhism, does NOT mean "social conditioning". It means the sum total of causes that make a thing what it is. So the colour of your eyes, the shape of your fingernails, your shoe-size, your height, are "conditioned."

Not a book for those just encountering Zen, but perfect for those beginning to get serious. Though he writes for lay-people not monks, Yüan-wu's guidance is rigorous. You must stay in what T.S. Eliot called "a condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything." The Buddha himself meditated for 6 years. Bodhidharma faced a wall for 9 years. The old Zen Masters used to talk about doing battle "in the Cave of Dragons."

Do you want to read this book when there are so many much easier ways to "enlightenment" out there in the spiritual marketplace? Up to you.

Those who have gone through several koans might be able to make some sense of this. For the average student it will be meaningless. It sure was to me. I found Zen mind, beginner's mind by Suzuki far more helpful.