Samurai Zen: The Warrior Koans
ISBN: 9780203380611
Platform/Publisher: Taylor & Francis / Routledge
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Unlimited; Download: Unlimited
Subjects: Humanities; Religion; Buddhism;

Samurai Zen brings together 100 of the rare riddles which represent the core spiritual discipline of Japan's ancient Samurai tradition. Dating from thirteenth-century records of Japan's Kamakura temples, and traditionally guarded with a reverent secrecy, they reflect the earliest manifestation of pure Zen in Japan. Created by Zen Masters for their warrior pupils, the Japanese Koans use incidents from everyday life - a broken tea-cup, a water-jar, a cloth - to bring the warrior pupils of the Samurai to the Zen realization. Their aim is to enable a widening of consciouness beyond the illusions of the limited self, and a joyful inspiration in life - a state that has been compared to being free under a blue sky after imprisonment.

Trevor Leggett (1914 - 2000), for many years the Head of the Japanese Service of the BBC, was a leading practitioner of Judo and among the West's most recognized modern experts on Zen and the eastern arts. He is the author of several books on Zen Buddhism and was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure by the Japanese Government in 1984 in recognition of his work in promoting Japanese culture abroad

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