Guogu’s (Jimmy Yu) new edited book is published in January 2025 by Columbia University Press which offers rich contributions by scholars and Zen teachers. A book launch is scheduled for April 6, 2025. A registration link will be announced soon, all are welcome to attend!
The Gateless Barrier is one of the most cherished yet also one of the most enigmatic Chan or Zen texts of East Asian Buddhism. Compiled by the Chinese Chan master Wumen Huikai in 1228, it contains forty-eight Zen stories of spiritual awakening called “public cases” or gong’ans (known as kōans in Japanese and kongans in Korean). This book presents a new English translation with close readings and creative analyses of the Gateless Barrier from both scholarly and practitioner perspectives, allowing a range of readers to venture into the rich world of Chan and Zen.
Specialist contributors offer insights on historical context, literary structure, philosophical implications, and gendered dimensions, as well as the embodied practice and contemporary experience of the stories in the Gateless Barrier. By bringing together academic expertise with experiential insight from Zen teachers, this book provides a grounded and nuanced account of how the Gateless Barrier has been—and continues to be—practiced and lived in China, Korea, Japan, and the West.
Discount code: CUP20
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Here is a quick look at the table of contents:
Introduction: The Gateless Barrier in Context, by Jimmy Yu
1. The Gong’an Tradition in the Gateless Barrier as a “Special Transmission Outside the Teaching,” by Albert Welter
2. Dahui Zong’gao and His Impact on the Gateless Barrier, by Jimmy Yu
3. The Gateless Barrier and the Locus of Truth, by Jin Y. Park
4. Paradox in the Gateless Barrier, by Robert H. Sharf
5. Testing, Contesting, Besting: Ambiguity in Gong’an Dialogues, by Steven Heine
6. A Gate of Their Own?: Women in Wumen’s World, by Natasha Heller
7. Public Cases in Korean Sŏn Buddhism, byJuhn Y. Ahn
8. From Secrecy to Openness: The Gateless Barrier in Premodern Japanese Zen, by Marta Sanvido
9. Kōan Kufū: Embodying the Kōan in Rinzai Zen Practice, by Meido Moore
10. On Kōan Training, by Jan Chozen Bays
Translation of the Gateless Barrier
A Survey of English Translations of the Gateless Barrier
Cross-Reference to Citations of the Gateless Barrier
