Wild Ivy: The Spiritual Autobiography of Zen Master Hakuin Kindle Edition
by Hakuin Ekaku (Author), Norman Waddell (Translator) Format: Kindle Edition
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A fiery and intensely dynamic Zen teacher and artist, Hakuin (1685–1768) is credited with almost single-handedly revitalizing Japanese Zen after three hundred years of decline. As a teacher, he placed special emphasis on koan practice, inventing many new koans himself, including the famous "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" This English translation of Hakuin’s intimate self-portrait includes reminiscences from his childhood, accounts of his Zen practice and enlightenment experiences, as well as practical advice for students.
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Print length
195 pages
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Book Description
The Spiritual Autobiography of Zen Master Hakuin --This text refers to the paperback edition.
Review
''A rich and rare glimpse into a Zen master's comments on his own spiritual journey, translated for the first time. A welcome and recommended addition to the canon of Zen literature available in English.'' --Publishers Weekly
''What Dharmic wealth is there contained.'' --The Middle Way
''Norman Waddell presents the cranky, impassioned master Hakuin with an uncanny sense of Right English. Now we know you, old Hakuin.'' --Robert Aitken, author of The Practice of Perfection and Taking the Path of Zen --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
Hakuin is the most important of the Japanese Zen artists; indeed, he is one of the greatest artists of any kind in world culture. Tremendously creative and productive, creating perhaps as many as 20,000 thousand Zenga in his lifetime as well as having thousands more pieces printed from woodblocks Hakuin's work is now appreciated all over the world. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer reviews
4.6 out of 5 stars
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Snezhana
5.0 out of 5 stars Wild Ivy: The Spiritual Autobiography of Zen Master Hakuin
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 October 2013
Verified Purchase
Wild Ivy: The Spiritual Autobiography of Zen Master Hakuin is a very inspiring book for the most sincere seekers of truth, excellently presented and researched!
2 people found this helpful
Amazon Customer
2.0 out of 5 stars Two Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 April 2016
Verified Purchase
I found Hakuin approach to the spiritual life joyless and attritional.
One person found this helpful
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Goodreads
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Hakuin Zenji (1689-1769) is a towering figure in Japanese Zen. A fiery and dynamic teacher and renowned artist, he reformed the Zen Rinzai tradition, which had fallen into stagnation and decline in his time, revitalizing it and ensuring its survival even to our own day. Hakuin emphasized the importance of zazen, or sitting meditation, and is also known for his skillful use of koans as a means to insight: the most famous of all koans, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" is attributed to Hakuin.
This is the first English translation of Hakuin's intimate self-portrait. It includes reminiscences from his childhood, accounts of his Zen practice and enlightenment experiences, practical advice for students on the problems that arise in intensive meditation practice, and the only description of a technique he calls "introspective meditation." (less)
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COMMUNITY REVIEWS
Showing 1-30
Average rating4.02 · Rating details · 179 ratings · 13 reviews
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Fergus
May 22, 2018Fergus rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Even if you’ve never heard of the profound old Renaissance-era Zen Master Hakuin, chances are you know someone just like him in your own life.
I know I did...
Hakuin was one of those guys who, even as a young lad, was besieged and hounded by a vicious swarm of personal devils.
So God laid it all on the line to the restless kid:
“Your mission, kid - should you choose to accept it - is to set out on a Quest.
“Your Quest will be simply to bear that screaming load of obstreperous devils, which you somehow agreed to yourself to so patiently carry on your accepting back, until you arrive at Mount Doom.
“There you will cast the whole lot of them, lock, stock and barrel, into the bowels of the Fiery Pit...
“And therein find everlasting Peace.”
Now, Hakuin was no fool.
But it was plain that God was right - so he set out on his lifelong mission.
You know, a bright wag once said there is an easy way to understand the word Atonement.
Quite simply, it is the way you find that final state At-One-Ment.
Peace. Heaven. Nirvana.
However you call it, it is the Pot of Gold Beneath the Rainbow - after our own prolonged lifelong storm.
And Hakuin found it.
Here he tells you how.
As his own struggle reached a thundering crescendo and his nightmares mushroomed - just like they did for that poor struggling mouse in the Sorceror’s Apprentice of Disney’s Fantasia, besieged by endlessly multiplying mops and buckets - his Master appeared.
With the antidote.
What a lucky break!
That’s the poetic gist of it, anyway. For the REAL story of Hakuin’s successful mad struggle you’ll have to read this book.
And yes, I knew someone just like Hakuin in my own life.
Relentlessly driven by that great force within her that Percy Shelley would call her Daemon, that driving force of creativity which arose in reaction to her own load of unfriendly demons (and we all have ‘em) she sought her own redeeming Morning Star till the end.
Facing increasingly insurmountable obstacles of multiplying mops and a deep pit of desperation in her life, she persevered through it all.
But I’m happy to report that, like Hakuin, she found Peace just before she died.
For it was at that blessed moment when my forever wife and I were joined in wedlock -
You see, at that moment, approaching her own Mount Doom, my Mother laid to rest her Daemons...
Because she saw that she had at last found Safe Haven for her Wayward Son:
And six months after she died, I started dealing with my own devils -
By undertaking an course of instruction that would lead to my admission into the Catholic Church. (less)
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Tord Helsingeng
May 09, 2018Tord Helsingeng rated it really liked it
An honest account of an anxious boy becoming a pillar of Zen. Hakuin has no respect for the nondualist schools at the time, but is also struggling with his own meditation sickness. A fascinating blend of practical Daoism and Zen.
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Paul
Jun 26, 2011Paul rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Can you see the entire sky in a rain drop? Hakuin introduced me to the Zen koan. Thanks Hakuin.
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Greg
Dec 24, 2019Greg rated it it was amazing
Shelves: religion
My favorite passages:
On the fear of the true and false Dharmas, especially mistaking one for the other:
“The true and the false are more distant from each other than heaven is from earth.” (68)
Self-deprecation:
“There is an old saying: ‘When a superior man speaks a thousand words, he may make a single mistake. When an inferior man speaks a thousand words, he may achieve a single benefit.’ If within this rambling nonsense of mine a single benefit is indeed to be found, it might perhaps serve as a small Dharma gift.
My writing is gross-grained, the strokes of my brush a thick, vulgar chicken-scratch. Both of them are riddled with blunders of various kinds. Characters miswritten. One word mistaken for another. I just scribble it down on the paper, make them a ‘fair copy.’ They take it and carve it onto wodden blocks and print it off. Altogether I must have written twenty books that way. No matter. Any wise man who claps eyes on them is sure to fling them to the ground in disgust and spew them contemptuously with spit.” (85)
The master Hakuyū giving Hakuin the cure for Zen sickness:
“You will never regain your health unless you are able to master the techniques of Instrospective Meditation. Just as the old saying goes, ‘When a person falls to the earth, it is from the earth that he must raise himself up.’” (92) The quote is an adage from the Ju Ta-ch’eng lun, and also appears in The Records of the Lamp of the Ching-te Era (Ching-te ch’uan-teng lu). (less)
Fluencer
May 18, 2021Fluencer rated it really liked it
Shelves: buddhism
Very interesting classic. So many interesting and liberating ideas. More detailed review to come.
Danny Mindich
Nov 05, 2021Danny Mindich rated it it was amazing
Cool manz.
Korrin
Jun 10, 2021Korrin rated it liked it
Shelves: hist-330
I had to read this for my History/International studies class. Even though it had some thought provoking ideas and I can say that I liked it it wasn't really my thing. (less)
Will Simpson
Apr 12, 2019Will Simpson rated it liked it · review of another edition
Save your reading time for something relevant. Way too much hocus pocus and woo-woo. Poorly translated I hope.
Risto J
May 18, 2021Risto J rated it really liked it
Shelves: zen
Lovely read. How did they put up with all hardship back then is astonishing. Maybe that's why awakening was more common than it is today. We're just too soft... (less)
Andrew
Oct 22, 2015Andrew rated it really liked it
Awesomeness. Hakuin was an 18th century Japanese Zen monk who was extraordinarily fierce in his pursuit of enlightened perfection and in his derision for paths that, in his estimation, led astray. His descriptions of his struggles with fears, doubts, and "Zen sickness" are fascinating. And then there is priceless invective like this: "These people, true to their words, do not do a single thing. They engage in no act of religious practice; they don't develop a shred of wisdom. They just waste their lives dozing idly away like comatose badgers, useless to their contemporaries while they live, completely forgotten after they die." (less)
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Gavin Whyte
Mar 05, 2015Gavin Whyte rated it really liked it
I was intrigued as to why there were so many people saying this book was a bore. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It gave a great insight into the life of a Zen Master in the 17th Century (I think it was 17th...). It isn't a book on Zen, say like Charlotte Joko Beck's Everyday Zen (which is superb, by the way), so don't expect to have many satoris whilst reading it... but it definitely shone a light on an area for me that up until now had been left in the dark. (less)
Steve Malley
Aug 15, 2012Steve Malley rated it it was ok
I am reading excerpts this book with my meditation group. Sorry, but this is a real snoozer, unless you are a diehard Zennie with a sense of value for historical Japanese Buddhism. So far, I have only read a number of the auto-biographical segments. Hopefully when I get to other sections, my outlook on the book will improve.
Maura
Aug 31, 2013Maura rated it liked it
Shelves: non-fiction, read-for-school, zzzzzz
Had to read this for school and while there is a lot of thought-provoking ideas in this book, I just couldn't muster up the interest. It was rather boring and Zen is not my thing. (less)
