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Article: Philosophical meditations on zen buddhism. (Book reviews).
- Article from:
- Buddhist-Christian Studies
- Article date:
- January 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 University of Hawaii Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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By Dale S. Wright. Cambridge, Great Britain: Cambridge University Press, 1998. xv +227 pp.
In a work brimming with unobtrusive erudition and centered on the figure of Huang Pa (d. 850), Dale Wright offers a seasoned account of a topic that is still very much in need of clarification, namely, the roles of language, conceptuality textuality interpretation, and historical development in Zen Buddhism. Some recent critics tend to see Zen as incoherent or even hypocritical in that this "special transmission outside the sutras, not dependent on language and texts, pointing directly to mind" (quoted, p. 64) in reality developed complex and varied textual and ritual ...