[Buddha-l] Teaching Zen Buddhist philosophy

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Mon, 2005-10-10 at 03:41 -0400, Dan Lusthaus wrote:

> I second Franz's suggestion to include Brian Victoria

Thanks to both of you. He is an author whom I was in fact considering
but forgot to mention. Hearing from you and Franz has convinced me it
would be good to include. I'm also toying with including at least a
couple of writings from Pruning the Bodhi Tree. I'll also take a look at
the Hisamatsu work that Bob Zeuschner suggested.

In years past I have tended to get stuck in historical
contextualization, which has led me to reading several Mahayana, Taoist
and Confucian texts before getting to anything specifically Chan. And
since it's impossible for me to talk about any Mahayana text without
giving its historical contexts, that leads me into talking quite a lot
about Indian Buddhism. While I do think that is all important, it means
I often end up trying to teach a twelve-year course in fifteen weeks.
So, in hopes of liberating myself from my penchant for historical
prapanca, I thought I'd like to deal with material the main historical
context of which is contemporary Western society. The attempts of
Western Buddhists to make sense of both Buddhism and their own religious
and cultural roots (with all their attendant biases) have always been
exciting to me, and I think also to students.

Thanks to all of you who have offered suggestions so far, and thanks in
advance to any suggestions that may come in during the next week or so.
I hope that the materials I finally choose really are, as Curt
suggested, pabulum (which, according to my dictionary means rich
physical nourishment and, by extension, excellent food for thought).

-- 
Richard Hayes