Zen Sourcebook: Traditional Documents from China, Korea, And Japan (Book Review‪)‬

Zen Sourcebook: Traditional Documents from China, Korea, and Japan. Edited by STEPHEN ADDISS, with Stanley Lombardo and Judith Roitman. Indianapolis: HACKETT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 2008. Pp. xxxii + 275. $39.95 (cloth); $12.95 (paper). Despite the plethora of popular and scholarly books on the Chan/Zen tradition(s) of East Asian Buddhism, there is a regrettable dearth of comprehensive and reliable readers or sourcebooks that introduce a broad range of classical texts in a manner that makes them accessible to a general audience of non-specialists. This book tries to address that gap in the available literature by presenting a reasonably comprehensive yet handy reader that contains selections from a broad range of texts composed in premodern East Asia. The three editors of the book should be commended on their joint effort at putting together a balanced volume that covers a great deal of the Chan/Zen tradition's rich heritage and long history. The book contains a variety of texts composed in a number of representative genres and styles, including sermons, encounter dialogues, poems, and letters. Its primary audiences will be undergraduates enrolled in courses on Zen or East Asian Buddhism, Zen practitioners, and general readers interested in learning more about classical Zen teachings, history, or literature.