Extra Salt

Extra Salt

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Extra Salt episodes

  • Linji, I: Sections 1-16

    WARNING: If you're wearing earphones, there are loud noises at different points in the recording. This probably gives away some of the surprise, but I can't be damaging people's hearing. Listen through speakers, or if you have to use headphones, keep your volume at a reasonable level.


    The Linji Lu, translated by Burton Watson, read by yours truly.

    This first part contains Ma Fang's preface & sections 1-16, covering all of part one and the beginning of part two.

    42 min
  • Zen Mystery: Sengcan

    Fair warning, this episode is a deep dive. The question seems simple. "Who was Sengcan, the Third Chinese Zen Master?" Unfortunately, there's no easy answer to this question. We'll be looking at many primary sources and the work of Jinhua Chen in our inquiry into the attributed author of the celebrated Xinxinming, or Faith in the Heart-Mind.


    SOURCES: Chen, Fact and Fiction: Creation of the Third Chan Patriarch and His Legends; McRae, Northern School; Cleary, Transmission of Light; Ray Huang, Britannica & Ancient History Encyclopedia for the history bits

    42 min
  • Proto-Zen: Huike's School
    From the mysterious death of Bodhidharma to the renewed anti-Buddhist persecutions - we discuss the earliest form of Zen that had to weather these troubled times. Proto-Zen, aka Huike's school.
    Sources: Reps and Senzaki's Mumonkan, McRae, Northern School; Britannica, terebess (https://terebess.hu/zen/huike.html), Two Entries, Four Practices Treatise and appended letters as translated by McRae, Jinhua Chen (Creation of the Third Chan Patriarch), Wonderwheel's blog (http://wonderwheels.blogspot.com/2017/04/one-vehicle-zen.html), Cleary's Transmission of Light, and special thanks to grass_skirt for translation help
    50 min
  • Audio Treatise: Bodhidharma's Treatise
    "Two Entries and Four Practices"
    The legendary Bodhidharma's only surviving teaching, as recorded by Tanlin, who learned from Huike, who learned from Zen Master Dharma himself.
    In the following episodes we'll be discussing Bodhidharma and Huike's school in-depth, and this text will factor heavily into the discussion. Here is the whole thing, as translated by John McRae. Included at the end are two letters which were appended and circulated with the text, the first of which is anonymous, the second of which is by Layman Hsiang (I incorrectly say it is also anonymous in the episode). After this follows Huike's letter replying to Layman Hsiang.
    18 min
  • Audio Treatise: Sutra of Forty-Two Sections
    42.... the answer to life, the universe & everything.
    We discussed the Sutra of Forty-Two Sections in the first episode of Extra Salt, as an influential text for early Chinese Buddhists in the first centuries AD. Today I'm reading the translation of this sutra by John Blofeld.
    30 min
  • ZEN HISTORY: Bodhidharma, Gunabhadra, Taoist Theocracy & more!
    China is divided between North and South, Gunabhadra arrives, the first anti-Buddhist persecution occurs, Bodhidharma arrives and tells it like it is.
    Towards the end of the episode, we'll look at the three earliest sources of Bodhidharma's life, then briefly consider the stories that followed centuries later.
    Art from the period covered in the past two episodes: http://etc.ancient.eu/interviews/artistic-creativity-in-six-dynasties-china/
    supplemental materials: https://imgur.com/gallery/RlNe75i
    SOURCES: Wendi Adamek, Early Chan... J. C. Cleary, Zen Dawn... Sima Guan... Wing T'sit Chan, Red Pine's Lankavatara Sutra, Jinhua Chen, Sengcan... John McRae, The Northern School... Thomas Cleary's translation of The Blue Cliff Record, John McRae, Seeing Through Zen
    1 hr
  • ZEN HISTORY: Kumarajiva & The Sixteen Kingdoms
    The very first episode of Extra Salt!
    SOURCES:
    Sutra of Forty-Two Sections, Zen for Americans, by Soyen Shaku, [1906]
    China History: A Macro View, by Ray Huang
    Mystique of Transmission, Early Chan History and its Contents, by Wendi Adamek
    Preface to the Lankavatara Sutra, Red Pine
    45 min

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