| Date: 28 April 2011, 07:33
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The Record of Linji (Nanzan Library of Asian Religion and Culture)
By Thomas Yuho Kirchner, Ruth Fuller Sasaki
* Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
* Number Of Pages: 521
* Publication Date: 2008-10
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0824828216
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780824828219
Product Description:
The Linji lu (Record of Linji) has been an essential text of Chinese and Japanese Zen Buddhism for nearly a thousand years. A compilation of sermons, statements, and acts attributed to the great Chinese Zen master Linji Yixuan (d. 866), it serves as both an authoritative statement of Zen's basic standpoint and a central source of material for Zen koan practice. Scholars study the text for its importance in understanding both Zen thought and East Asian Mahayana doctrine, while Zen practitioners cherish it for its unusual simplicity, directness, and ability to inspire.
One of the earliest attempts to translate this important work into English was by Sasaki Shigetsu (1882-1945), a pioneer Zen master in the U.S. and the founder of the First Zen Institute of America. At the time of his death, he entrusted the project to his wife, Ruth Fuller Sasaki, who in 1949 moved to Japan and there founded a branch of the First Zen Institute at Daitoku-ji. Mrs. Sasaki, determined to produce a definitive translation, assembled a team of talented young scholars, both Japanese and Western, who in the following years retranslated the text in accordance with modern research on Tang-dynasty colloquial Chinese. As they worked on the translation, they compiled hundreds of detailed notes explaining every technical term, vernacular expression, and literary reference. One of the team, Yanagida Seizan (later Japan's preeminent Zen historian), produced a lengthy introduction that outlined the emergence of Chinese Zen, presented a biography of Linji, and traced the textual development of the Linji lu. The sudden death of Mrs. Sasaki in 1967 brought the nearly completed project to a halt. An abbreviated version of the book was published in 1975, but neither this nor any other English translations that subsequently appeared contain the type of detailed historical, linguistic, and doctrinal annotation that was central to Mrs. Sasaki's plan.
The materials assembled by Mrs. Sasaki and her team are finally available in the present edition of the Record of Linji. Chinese readings have been changed to Pinyin and the translation itself has been revised in line with subsequent research by Iriya Yoshitaka and Yanagida Seizan, the scholars who advised Mrs. Sasaki. The notes, nearly six hundred in all, are almost entirely based on primary sources and thus retain their value despite the nearly forty years since their preparation. They provide a rich context for Linji's teachings, supplying a wealth of information on Tang colloquial expressions, Buddhist thought, and Zen history, much of which is unavailable anywhere else in English. This revised edition of the Record of Linji is certain to be of great value to Buddhist scholars, Zen practitioners, and readers interested in Asian Buddhism.
Summary: Best Translation - Comprehensive Supplemental Material
Rating: 5
By far the best English translation of the Record of Lin-chi (Rinzai) to date.
The wealth of supplemental material included in this new edition is itself worth the price of the book!
While there are a couple of quality English translations available, this new edition goes way above and beyond anything else previously available.
This work on the vastly influential Record of Linji (aka. Lin-chi, Jap. Rinzai) is the result of decades of work by a veritable multitude of preeminent Zen scholars. This translation was first conceived and begun by Sasaki Shigetsu (1882-1945). Unfinished at the time of his death, the project was continued by Sasaki Shigetsu's wife, Ruth Fuller Sasaki, who revisioned the project, and wanted to greatly expand the amount of supplemental material included.
With the assistance of a small army of Japanese and Western scholars, she managed to compile a wealth of notes and research material and was well on the way to what would certainly have been a definitive edition when she died suddenly and unexpectedly in 1967. An abridged version of the book was released in 1975. Although it was a quality publication, it fell way short of Ruth Fuller Sasaki's original intention.
Then, in recent years a team of scholars brought the many discoveries and advances of modern Zen scholarship to bear and completely revised and updated the wealth of material compiled by Sasaki and her team. The result of their efforts is, "The Record of Linji."
To give you an idea of the vast amount of supplemental material included in this massive volume of Zen wisdom, consider that the translation itself runs for only about 50 pages. The book contains 500 pages!
Besides the translated text, this book includes an historical introduction by the widely regarded scholar Yanagida Seizan, and a comprehensive commentary by Ruth Fuller Sasaki. It also includes the Original Chinese text, tons of detailed and illuminating notes, alternative translations, a massive bibliography, a list of personal names, a remarkably meticulous index, and more.
By far the best translation of the Linji Lu, and one of the best English translations of any Zen text to date.
Summary: New Revision sets the Standard
Rating: 5
Recently I wrote a quick review of the Burton Watson translation of the Linji Lu, which has always been my favorite for its rendering of obscure T'ang/Song era colloquialisms into smooth English, but I was unaware that this new revision of the Sasaki translation, exhaustively edited by Thomas Yuho Kirchner, had just been published by the Univ. of Hawaii Press.
Readers of the 1975 edition of the Ruth Fuller Sasaki's translation will see much new material here, not only fresh renderings of passages taking into account modern Japanese scholarship, but also an extensive amount of footnotes clarifying passages in the text. While these footnotes do not "explain" the passages from a Zen (Chan) student's viewpoint (and indeed, the meaning of many passages like the famous "formulas" defy definite clarification even by experts), the extensive collection of notes are very helpful for wading through some occasionally rather difficult T'ang/Song vernacular.
Kirchner himself deserves huge praise for wading into such a time-consuming project in making this edition available for publication, a truly imposing task. It indeed must have been a labor of love. Needless to say, anyone interested in world religious literature in general, much less zen scholars and practitioners specifically, should consider the Linji Lu required reading. And this rendition, along with the commentary, will not likely be superseded for quite some time. Buy it, study it, and try to see eye-to-eye with a towering chan master (or at least a Song Period version of him), if you can :-).
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