The Matter of Zen
A brief account of ZAZEN by Paul Wienpahl
New York UniversityPress 1964
INTRODUCTION BY PAUL WIENPAHL
At the heart of Zen is zazen, an intensified form of meditation, practice by the Rinzai Zen Buddhists of Japan. In this book Paul Wienpahl, a Western-schooled philosopher who has studied zazen in Japan, explains the discipline in step-by-step detail.
He decribes each of the traditional aids to zazen: sitting quietly in tho lotus position; breathing in a certain way; couting; koans, or puzzles; the role of the roshi, or teacher; and the zen moral code.
He includes, in addition, chapters on the history of Zen and the relation of Zen to traditional Western moral and metaphysical problems. And he suggests, as well, some of the reasons why Zen in the West has become a predominantly literary phenomenon.
The Matter of Zen also perform the extremely useful function of telling us what Zen Buddhism is not. It is not quietism or vacuity, nor an Eastern substitute for psychoanalysis, nor even a philosophy in the sense in which Westerners understand the word. Rather, as Professor Wienpahl shows, it is a rigorously systematic practice, requiring great effort, whose ultimate end is tranquility.
In directing attention to the why and how of zazen, Professor Wienpahl takes much of the mystery out of its mysticism and provides a fascinating account of a discipline that is often discussed but rarely understood.
CONTENTS
PREFACE IX
1 The first step
2 Zazen
3 Aids to zazen
4 Further directions
5 Simplicity I
6 Simplicity II
7 Sanzen and the Koan
8 Satori
9 Other aids for Zazen
10 Zazen overlooked
11 Zazen , not quietism
12 The vigor in Zazen
13 From sayings of Rinzai
14 The hard wosk : Sesshin
15 Ladder Zen and the paradoxes
16 Some history
17 The theory
18 Zen and psychoanalysis
19 Zen and philosophy
20 Ryoan-Ji : the practice again
21 Listening
22 Letures I
23 Lectures II
EPILOGUE
NOTES