Here are a list of some articles / essays that are available on line. I am not providing the links -- I downloaded them some time ago -- but if you are interested in reading any of them, just search on line and you can find them. All of these are, of course, available at no charge. Sometimes it takes some digging to find the books on line for free, but some are now posted. thezensite.com -- is a good place to find some of these articles and others.
Please note: I am not endorsing all of these articles or points of view. The fact they are listed doesn't mean I agree with everything said, but I enjoy sharing these differing points of view on Zen practice and history. Some of these articles focus on specifics that are a bit obscure. But what I saw from reading / scanning these articles and the many books I posted on the site is that the simplistic, monolithic vision of Zen / Chan history and lineage is a fairy tale, a myth, a product of pious imagination and sectarian promotion.
Many traditional Zen teachers / organizations just want to ignore all this history and continue to believe that Zen exists is some absolute sphere and none of these "facts" matter. To me, that point of view is just an example of institutional willful blindness, no different than what happens in any religion that seeks to promote itself and deny its shadows - like the Catholic church, for example. Zen does not exist only in some absolute pure realm. Pure Zen is also a fantasy. And Zen groups and students need not be threatened by facing the relative realities that are part of daily life. Shadows denied will come to light -- as we saw with the OBC, Maezumi, Baker, Genpo, Shimano and the many gurus and spiritual leaders who say one thing and do another. Denial is not part of any sane spiritual practice - and won't work in the modern world in any case.
So here are some articles that you can find on line:
Kapleau Roshi and His Teachers: Dharma Transmission and the Rochester Zen Center Lineage - Bodhin Kjolhede
Zen Naturalism: What I hate about Zen - Frank June
Review: Domoulin's Zen Buddhism: A History -- Review by John Jorgenson
Legends in Ch'an: The Northern / Southern School Split, Hui-Neng and the Platform Sutra by Vladimir K
Is Zen Buddhism? by David Loy
The Lineage of Ch'an: The Historian and the Believer by Hoyu Ishada
Scandals Emerging in Western Buddhism by Sandra Bell
A Critical Survey of Works on Zen since Yampolsy by Steven Heine
Dogen: Beyond the Facade of Hagiography -- from thezensite.com
Some Reflections on Japanese Religion and Its Relationship to the Imperial System - by Joseph M. Kitagawa
Soto Zen in a Japanese Town: Field Notes on a Once-Every-Thirty-Three Year Kannon Festival by William Bodford
Early Chinese Zen Reexamined: A Supplement to Zen Buddhism: A History -- by Heinrich Dumolin
Book Review from H-Net Reviews: of The Mystique of Transmission by Wendi L. Adamek -- the review is by Albert Welter. Wendi's full book is available free on line
The Development of the Temple-Parishioner System - Tamauro Fumio
The Purple Robe Incident and the Formation of the Early Modern Soto Zen Institution by Duncan Williams
Review: The Other Side of Zen by Duncan Ryuken Williams
Review of Zen War Stories by Brian Victoria -- review by Daniel A. Metraux
Where the Action Is: Sites of Contemporary Soto Buddhism by Mark Rowe
Tracing the Rhetoric of Contemporary Zen: Dogen Sangha and the Modernization of Japanese Zen Buddhism in the Light of the Rhetorical Analysis of a Weblog - by Johannes Cairns
Is Critical Buddhism Really Critical by Peter N. Gegory
Critical Buddhism and the Debate Concerning the 75-Fascicle and the 12-Fascicle Shobogenzo Texts by Steve Heine
Remembering Dogen: Eiheiji and the Dogen Hagiography by William Bodford - from thezensite.com
Did Dogen Go to China? taken from his book - Steven Heine - on thezensite.com
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