The Heart Sutra from a Japanese Zen Buddhist Perspective.

A Book for Students of Zen Buddhism; Religion Scholars;
Philosophy Students, and Readers of Taisen Deshimaru’s Books.

Taisen Deshimaru. #Buddhist #Drinking #Glasses “To receive everything, one must open one's hands and give.”- Taisen Deshimaru. #Helping Others #Hands #Giving “Time is not a line, but a series of now-points.”- Taisen Deshimaru. #Mindfulness #Lines “You cannot separate any part from the whole: interdependence rules the cosmic. This edition emphasizes Deshimaru’s chorus: Mushotoku mind is the key attitude characterizing the way of the Buddha, the way of the bodhisattva, The way of Zen and zazen, and the way of all sutras (teachings). Taisen Deshimaru (d. 1982) was the founder of the Association Zen Internationale, one of the largest influences on Zen in the West. The Reverend Taisen Deshimaru ( or Yasuo, his birth name) was born in 1914, near the town of Saga on the isalnd of Kyushu. His father was a notable, who was in charge of the local fishing syndicate. His mother was a fervent devotee of Jodo Shinsu Buddhism, of the Pure Land school, founded by Shinran. She transmitted her faith in this school to him. Master Deshimaru during this retreat, while maintaining as much as possible his lively oral characteristics and power of his teachings. Taisen Deshimaru was a man of free ideas and strong words, and the remarkable success of this book is that the text, having been through transcription and presentation, still. Loy was born in the Panama Canal Zone. His father was in the U.S. Navy so the family traveled a great deal. He attended Carleton College in Minnesota, and spent his junior year abroad studying philosophy at King's College London. After graduation in 1969 he moved to San Francisco and then to Hawaii where he began to practice Zen Buddhism.

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“Mushotoku mind” means an attitude of no profit, no gain. It is the core of master Taisen Deshimaru’s Zen. This respected teacher of Japanese Soto Zen moved from Japan in 1967 and brought this work to Paris, from where it was disseminated throughout the West. This book presents his commentary on the most renowned of Buddhist texts, the Heart Sutra, known in Japanese as Hannya Shingyo—a philosophical investigation on the futility of philosophical investigation.

Deshimaru’s work fills a great gap in the interpretations of this seminal text in that he emphasizes “mind-emptiness” (ku) as the foundation of Zen practice, in contrast to the usual “mindfulness” focus of many other Zen approaches. This “emptiness” and “purpose of no purpose” is one of the most difficult ideas for Westerners to understand. Yet we know that our most cherished values are based on mushotoku mind when it comes, for example, to love. We value the unselfish love of family or country that is based not on what we can get from the relationship but on what we can give. We know, too, that these virtues are not accomplished directly through our will but indirectly through dropping our expectations.

His lectures on this subject have been translated by Ilsa Fatt and edited by Reiryu Philippe Coupey of Deshimaru’s British and French groups; and here completely revised and reedited for an American audience by Reishin Richard Collins. This edition emphasizes Deshimaru’s chorus: Mushotoku mind is the key attitude characterizing the way of the Buddha, the way of the bodhisattva, The way of Zen and zazen, and the way of all sutras (teachings).

Taisen Deshimaru (d. 1982) was the founder of the Association Zen Internationale, one of the largest influences on Zen in the West. He is author of: The Ring of the Way and The Zen Way to Martial Arts: A Japanese Master Reveals the Secrets of the Samurai.

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Richard Collins is a Zen teacher in the lineage of Taisen Deshimaru and Dean of Arts & Humanities at California State University, Bakersfield.