Treasury of the Eye of True Teaching
Classic Stories, Discourses, and Poems of the Chan Tradition
Thomas Cleary, one of America’s most beloved translators of Buddhist texts, brings twelfth century Chan master Dahui’s monumental compilation of teachings to life for the first time in English.
Treasury of the Eye of True Teaching (Chinese Zhengfayanzang) stands as among the greatest classics of Chan (Chinese Zen) Buddhism, combining speeches, stories, dialogues, poems, and commentaries that the influential master Dahui (1089–1163) extracted from Chan lore. Compiled by Dahui’s students during Song Dynasty China, this work is replete with the enigmatic, paradoxical wisdom for which Zen Buddhism is so well known.
Central to this collection is the notion of “great doubt” in matters of language, conceptual thinking, and how we conceive of our existence. By working with great doubt through koan introspection…