Modern Reading of the Platform Sutra

Author: Dongfang Qiao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-11-01
Features: At the end of a hot June, I received his letter saying he had moved to a spacious home in the countryside: "This village faces Guanyin Mountain in front and the sea behind. Sometimes, watching white herons fly together and hearing the frantic chirping of cicadas, it truly is the joy of the countryside." A cool, rustic atmosphere washed over me, and I forgot the heat of the metropolis. Before my eyes, a silver-haired, energetic old man appeared, strolling along a mountain path; he watched the white herons fly together with his eyes, listened to the cicadas' frantic chirping with his ears, and his mind surged with endless Zen thoughts. The scriptures recited by Buddhist followers in dreams and the heavens are all treasures brought from the West, but this Platform Sutra is the work of scholars in the East. It established a purely Chinese Buddhist system with a set of ideas about Buddha-nature, the path of practice, and the realm of enlightenment, and it has had a profound influence on the evolution and development of Chinese culture since the Tang and Song dynasties.
In this Modern Reading of the Platform Sutra, Professor Dongfang Qiao of Taiwan, with his deep expertise in integrating various schools of thought, combines the essential content and analysis of the Platform Sutra's ten chapters with the origins and diverse developments of Chinese Chan Buddhism and its major schools. Using a calm and flowing writing style, he weaves the narrative together in a captivating manner, leaving listeners spellbound.