Jacksonville Zen Sangha
Summer Sutra Course 2005
Instructor: Zenrin Lewis

This sutra course is designed to give us a chance to carefully examine selections from six popular Buddhist sutras whose study was an important factor in the rise of Zen in China. Buddha’s first sermon lays the foundation swiftly and solidly. The Vimalakirti sutra is considered to be the layperson’s sutra, because is emphases the ability of the ordinary person to attain enlightenment. The Lotus sutra is well-known, famous for its parables and Buddha’s teaching about Kanzeon, the Bodhisattva of compassion. The Diamond Sutra trains its reader in prajna, the wisdom that lives the ungraspable, indefinable, inconceivable nature of all dharmas. The Platform Sutra tells of the beginning of Zen-in-action as we have it now. The Wreath Sutra is massively splendid, encouraging and deep.

Course Fee: $35 for all six classes. Contribution of more or less than the full fee will be accepted for registration.

Please register by telephone (Jacksonville Zen Sangha, Zenrin Lewis, (904) 398-6905)
or by email (information@zensangha.net)

Recommended Books:
Here are books (available at Amazon.com, used and new) and online versions of the sutras to choose from.

The Turning of the Wheel of the Law Sutra
•Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, Pali and English translation by Soma Thera. (Bodhi Leaves No. B. 1)
•Put “Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta” in a computer search engine (e.g., Google), and you will find several translations of this short text.

The Vimalakirti Sutra
•The Vimalakirti Sutra, translated by Burton Watson
•The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti: A Mahayana Scripture, translated by Robert A.F. Thurmond
•http://imeditate.com/vimalakirti/index.html for free text of the Vimalakirti (without the footnotes and extensive glossary that are in the book)

The Lotus Sutra
•The Lotus Sutra, translated by Burton Watson
•The Essential Lotus, edited and translated by Burton Watson
•http://www.sgi-usa.org/buddhism/library/Buddhism/LotusSutra/ for free text of Burton Watson’s translations, without footnotes, glossary or index
•The Threefold Lotus Sutra, translated by Kato, Bunno, and others

The Diamond Sutra
•The Diamond Sutra. Dialogue Version, translated by Zenrin Lewis
•The Diamond Sutra, translated by A.F. Price—in: The Diamond Sutra & the Sutra of Hui-neng

The Platform Sutra
•The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch. Tun-huang manuscript text. Translated and edited by Philip B. Yampolsky
•The Platform Scripture. Translated by Wing-tsit Chan
•The Sutra of Hui-neng, translated by Wong Mou-lam—in: The Diamond Sutra & the Sutra of Hui-neng

The Wreath Sutra
•The Flower Ornament Scripture: The Avatamsaka Sutra, translated by Thomas Cleary (1643 pages!)
•The Great Means Expansive Buddha Flower Adornment Sutra. Dharma Realm Buddhist University Buddhist Text Translation Society. Various chapters issued separately. Commentary by Hsuan Hua. (Literal but faithful.)

 

Summer Sutra Course Schedule 2005
2014 Perry Place, Jacksonville (Directions)
[The course sessions are somewhat independent, so full-time attendance is not necessary.]

Sutras that Are Inspiration for Zen

Class Date

Topic

Reading
Tuesday, July 12,
7 p.m.
 		 The Buddha’s first discourse after his enlightenment, in which we can discern the first seeds of Zen. The Middle Way; How Suffering Happens. Dhammachakkappavattana Sutta (The Sutra of the [First] Turning of the Wheel of the Law [Dharma])
Tuesday, July 26,
7 p.m.
 		 Non-duality; What is good? What is bad? —33 answers, the last being the best! The Vimalakirti Sutra, Chapter 9:
“Entering the Gate of Nondualism”
Tuesday, August 9,
7 p.m.		 Who is Kanzeon, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, and what does she/he actually do—and how? The Lotus Sutra,
Chapter 25: “The Universal Gateway of the Bodhisattva Perceiver of the World’s Sounds”
Tuesday, August 23,
7 p.m.
 		 The Heart Sutra’s message gone into more deeply: Emptiness, which is ungraspable, indefinable, inconceivable, and yet alive with possibility, variety and subtle elegance The Diamond Sutra (Vajracchedika Prajna-paramita Sutra, Kongo Kyo), [selections from] Chapters 3, 5, 6, 7, 18, 22 and 32
Tuesday, September 6,
7 p.m.
 		 The first and only sutra in which the Buddha doesn’t appear. Zen in action. The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch (Rokuso Dangyo), [selections from] Chapters 2-11 and 49
 
Tuesday, September 20,
7 p.m.		 A key section of the longest, deepest and most splendid Mahayana Sutra, the Wreath Sutra, aka the Flower Ornament Scripture. It’s massively encouraging. The Avatamsaka Sutra (Kegon Gyo), Chapter 39: Entry into the Realm of Reality, the Sagaramegha (Tokuun) section

Reading Sutras

The sutras have their own style, which can be off-putting if you try to read one like a novel. Browsing works better. Translators try to turn the concise, almost terse, “punchy,” original into easily readable English.

Things can get flowery, especially at the beginning of a chapter. But those passages are very concise in the original, and they are metaphors for psychological states—very remarkable states.

There is always a list of who’s listening—who the sutra is addressed to. If the names in the list are translated literally, they look strange. But, for instance, the shortest sutra, the Heart Sutra, is addressed to Shariputra—the one of the Buddha’s disciples who most has—lives—prajna, the wisdom that sees the emptiness, the ungraspability, of everything in this teeming world—in particular, of the

mental phenomena we cobble together into the false self that causes us so much suffering. So when Shariputra is addressed by name in the Heart Sutra, that suggests the point of that sutra in a wonderfully concise way. And so it is with other sutras: The list of those listening, of who is being addressed, can be a good guide to the sutra’s meaning and to what it takes to thoroughly understand it.

Each chapter tends to be repeated in verse. Generally the verse came first—often because the original version was not written down, but rather handed down verbally, and got by heart—which is much easier to do with verse than it is with prose. So if you liked a chapter, or part of a chapter, you may find the verse form more memorable and vivid—quite different, even though much the same in content.

 

 


 

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