Product Description

No other text is as important to Buddhists, especially Zen Buddhists, and this translation includes commentary from major Chinese and Japanese historical sources. Zen Buddhism is often said to be a practice of "mind-to-mind transmission" without reliance on texts --in fact, some great teachers forbid their students to read or write. But Buddhism has also inspired some of the greatest philosophical writings of any religion, and two such works lie at the center of Zen: The Heart Sutra, which monks recite all over the world, and The Diamond Sutra, said to contain answers to all questions of delusion and dualism. This is the Buddhist teaching on the "perfection of wisdom" and cuts through all obstacles on the path of practice. As Red Pine explains: "The Diamond Sutra may look like a book, but it's really the body of the Buddha. It's also your body, my body, all possible bodies. But it's a body with nothing inside and nothing outside. It doesn't exist in space or time. Nor is it a construct of the mind. It's no mind. And yet because it's no mind, it has room for compassion. This book is the offering of no mind, born of compassion for all suffering beings. Of all the sutras that teach this teaching, this is the diamond. "

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #135294 in Books
• Published on: 2002-11-18
• Original language: Chinese
• Dimensions: 1.04 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The Diamond Sutra has fascinated Buddhists for centuries because of its insights into dualism and illusion; the "diamond" can cut through any obstacle on the road to enlightenment. In The Diamond Sutra: The Perfection of Wisdom, Red Pine offers his translation of the text from both Sanskrit and Chinese, as well as commentary throughout. He also provides an interesting introduction to the history of the text's transmission, explaining that since the Sutra was originally in verse, he has tried to preserve its poetic coherence. This is a useful and beautiful translation of one of Buddhism's central texts.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Buddhist sutras have preserved and transmitted the direct words and teachings of Sakyamuni Buddha at first as oral tradition, later written since the fourth century B.C.E. In the Diamond Sutra, a mainstay of the Mahayana tradition, the Buddha responds to a disciple's question about how to become a Buddha. The answer: we must move beyond personal enlightenment to follow the path of the Bodhisattvas, fully enlightened beings who postpone Nirvana in order to alleviate the suffering of others. To understand this brief but difficult teaching, Red Pine (aka Bill Potter), the respected translator of the Collected Songs of Cold Mountain (LJ 10/1/00) and Lao-Tzu's Taoteching (LJ 10/1/96), went beyond the "usual" Chinese versions to translate the more poetic, and meaning-laden, Sanskrit. Here, he well presents that translation, his comments, and excerpts from commentaries classic and modern. Recommended for academic and public libraries serving serious students to complement Edward Conze's Buddhist Wisdom: Containing the Diamond Sutra and the Heart Sutra (Vintage, 2001) and Thich Nhat Hanh's The Diamond That Cuts Through Illusion: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Diamond Sutra (Parallax, 1992). James R. Kuhlman, Univ. of North Carolina Lib., Asheville
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
Red Pine (a.k.a. Bill Porter) is the translator of the complete poems of Cold Mountain (Han-shan), Pickup (Shih-te), and Big Shield (Fen g-kan), as well as works by Stonehouse (Shih-wu), Sung Po-jen (awarded a PEN West translation prize) , and Lao-tzu (a PEN West finalist). He lives in P ort Townsend, Washington.