Blue Cliff Record: Zen Echoes

David Rothenberg

Codhill Press, 2001 - Philosophy - 126 pages

“Revisiting these 100 classic case studies, Rothenberg enlivens the process, and if he returns one to translations from the original, if his practice deepens another’s practice, so much the better.” –from the foreword by Sam Hamill, editor and translator of the Essential Chuang Tzu

“It is astonishing how thousand year old riddles are brought here to evocative poetic life. David Rothenberg converts them into contemporary verbal music, and arcanum, a profound secret, a mystery without intellectual solution.” –Frederick Franck, author of The Zen of Seeing and The Buddha Eye

This vividly poetic version of the classic 12th century Zen treasurehouse, the Blue Cliff Record, breathes new life into its extraordinary collection of one hundred koans, ingeniously devised from contemplations, insight, and enlightenment.

“Rothenberg’s adaptation of the Blue Cliff Record is that rare thing, a work of art that is also useful. It is a bracing as a dive into a cold spring.” –Mark Rudman, winner of the National Book Critics’ Circle Award for Poetry.

Poet, writer, philosopher, and musician, David Rothenberg is a contributing editor at Parabola magazine and founding editor of Terra Nova, the award-winning journal of deep ecology. The author of Hand’s End and Sudden Music, his writing is featured in the anthologies The Best Spiritual Writing 1999 and The Soul of Nature.

Contents

• 1 The Highest Truths: 15
• 2 The End It Is Easy: 16
• 3 When the Master Is Unwell: 17
• 4 Carry Your Burden: 18
• 5 The Grain of Rice: 19
• 6 Every Day a Good Day: 20
• 7 Your Name as Answer: 21
• 8Eyebrows of the Wind: 22
• 9Gates to All Directions: 23
• 10 All This Shouting: 24
• 11It Takes a Word: 25
• 12 Three Pounds of Cotton: 27
• 13 Snow in a Silver Bowl: 28
• 14 The Appropriate Statement: 29
• UpsideDown Phrase: 30
• 16 Adrift in the Weeds: 31
• First Come from the West: 32
• 18 Conjure the Temple: 33
• 19 One Finger Zen: 34
• Another One from the West: 35
• 21Lotus Flower Lotus Leaves: 36
• 22 TurtleNosed Snake: 37
• 23On the Sacred Peak: 38
• 24Lay Down and Rest: 40
• 25 The Hermit Holds Up His Stick: 41
• 26 Alone on the Summit: 42
• 27 Limbs Exposed to the Autumn Wind: 43
• 28Unsaid Truths: 44
• Just Go Along with It: 46

About the author

Sam Hamill was raised on a farm in Utah and endured an early life of violence, drug abuse, and jail time. He was a teenage heroin addict when he discovered poetry. He studied under poet Kenneth Rexroth at the University of California, Santa Barbara. While a student, Hamill won a $500 award for producing the best university literary magazine in the country. With that money he co-founded the all-poetry Copper Canyon Press with Bill O'Daly and Tree Swenson. Hamill was editor for the press from 1972 until 2004. Hamill was a poet and translator. His collections of poetry included Destination Zero: Poems 1970-1995, Gratitude, Dumb Luck, Almost Paradise: New and Selected Poems and Translations, Measured by Stone, and Habitation: Collected Poems. His translated works include Narrow Road to the Interior: And Other Writings by Matsuo Basho, The Poetry of Zen, and The Essential Chuang Tzu. He won two Washington Governor's Arts Awards, the Stanley Lindberg Lifetime Achievement Award for Editing, and the Washington Poets Association Lifetime Achievement Award. He died on April 14, 2018 at the age of 74.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Blue Cliff Record: Zen Echoes; Codhill Press
• Author: David Rothenberg
• Translated by: Sam Hamill
• Contributor: Sam Hamill
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Codhill Press, 2001
• ISBN: 1930337035, 9781930337039
• Length: 126 pages
• Subjects: Philosophy / Zen; Poetry / General; Religion / Buddhism / General; Religion / Buddhism / Zen