Zen Masters of China presents more than 300 traditional Zen stories and koans; far more than any other collection. Retelling them in their proper place in Zen's historical journey through Buddhist Chinese culture; it also tells a larger story: how; in taking the first step east from India to China; Buddhism began to be Zen.The stories of Zen are unlike any other writing; religious or otherwise. Used for centuries by Zen teachers as aids to bring about or deepen the experience of awakening; they have a freshness that goes beyond religious practice and a mystery and authenticity that appeal to a wide range of readers.Placed in chronological order; these stories tell the story of Zen itself; how it traveled from West to East with each Zen master to the next; but also how it was transformed in that journey; from an Indian practice to something different in Chinese Buddhism (Ch'an) and then more different still in Japan (Zen). The fact that its transmission was so human; from teacher to student in a long chain from West to East; meant that the cultures it passed through inevitably changed it.Zen Masters of China is first and foremost a collection of mind-bending Zen stories and their wisdom. More than that; without academic pretensions or baggage; it recounts the genealogy of Zen Buddhism in China and; through koan and story; illuminates how Zen became what it is today.
#970305 in Books Khalili Laleh 2012-11-21 2012-11-21Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.00 x .90 x 6.00l; 1.05 #File Name: 0804778337363 pagesTime in the Shadows Confinement in Counterinsurgencies
Review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Excellent historical and theoretical workBy John ProteviKhalili places an enormous amount of painstaking archival and interview work in historical context; informed by theoretical considerations (Schmitt; Foucault; and Gramsci primarily). Superb and insightful.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Five StarsBy Reenyp73Excellent book4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Brilliant and vast in scopeBy L. L. WynnIn this book; Laleh Khalili; a political scientist at SOAS; "critically engage[s] with the assertions of today's counterinsurgent theorists and practitioners;" including Petraeus; Kilcullen; and Nagl; "that counterinsurgency is about 'securing' and 'protecting' the population" (p.5). She demonstrates the irony of modern liberal democracies which deny the violence they commit; pushing it into the shadows and/or calling it more "humane;" thus making it more likely to occur.Counterinsurgencies and confinement in places like Abu Ghraib; Guantanamo; and the CIA proxy-run prisons were created as a response to liberal objections to mass colonial slaughter in previous wars. Thus the rule of law and humanitarian ideals are paradoxically responsible for generating the hidden violence of expanding states; embodied in new mechanisms of containment which are envisioned as opportunities for "socially engineering the people and places they conquered" (p.3). This book examines extensively the "micropractices of coercion" (p.7) and shows that these are not accidents or exceptions committed by violent fringe elements in a nation's military but rather central components of a liberal order when states expand beyond their borders.Brilliant and comprehensive in scope. Highly recommended.
