Download or read book Two Zen Classics written by A. V. Grimstone and published by Weatherhill, Incorporated. This book was released on 1977 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The strange verbal paradoxes called koans have been used in Zen training to help students attain a direct realization of truths inexpressible in words. The two works translated in this book, Mumonkan (Gateless Gate) and Hekiganroku (Blue Cliff Record), both compiled during the Song dynasty in China, are the best known and most frequently studied koan collections, and are classics of Zen literature. In a completely new translation, together with original commentaries, Katsuki Sekida brings to these works the same fresh and pragmatic approach that made his Zen Training so successful. The insights of a lifetime of Zen practice and his familiarity with Western as well as Eastern ways of thinking make him an ideal interpreter of these texts