SUT538 - The Lotus Sutra

The Sutra of the Lotus of the Wonderful Dharma

  • Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra (Sanskrit)
  • Sanskrit: सद्धर्मपुण्डरीकसूत्र Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra
  • Chinese: 妙法蓮華經 Miàofǎ Liánhuá Jīng, shortened to 法華經 Fǎhuá Jīng
  • Japanese: 妙法蓮華経 Myōhō-Renge-Kyō, shortened to 法華経 Hokke-Kyō, Hoke-Kyō
  • Korean: 묘법연화경 Myobeop Yeonhwa Gyeong, shortened to 법화경 Beophwa Gyeong
  • Vietnamese Diệu Pháp Liên Hoa Kinh, shortened to Pháp Hoa Kinh 

This course includes weekly meditation topics concerning the contents of the Lotus Sutra. Apply the Vipassana or Insight Meditation technique. Sit quietly and reflect on the topic assigned each week. It is recommended that you sit for twenty minutes, using a timer.

SUT531 - Platform Sūtra

SUT531 - Platform Sūtra (3 Units)
Prerequisites: None 
Textbook: The Platform Sutra of Huineng by Mong Mou-Lam 
9 week course 

Textbook: The Diamond Sutra and the Sutra of Hui-Neng by A. F. Price, Wong Mou-lam, W. Y. Evans-Wentz and Christmas Humphreys
9 week course beginning the week of

The Sutra of Hui-neng, also known as the Platform Sutra, contains the autobiography of a pivotal figure in Zen history and some of the most profound passages of Zen literature. Hui-neng (638–713) was the sixth patriarch of Zen in China, but is often regarded as the true father of the Zen tradition. He was a poor, illiterate woodcutter who is said to have attained enlightenment upon hearing a recitation of the Diamond Sutra. Together, these two scriptures present the central teaching of the Zen Buddhist tradition and are essential reading for all students of Buddhism.

SUT532 - Heart Sūtra

SUT532 - Heart Sūtra (3 Units)
Prerequisites
Textbook: The Heart of the Universe: Exploring the Heart Sutra by Mu Soeng
9 week course beginning the week of

Though The Heart Sutra is an ancient Buddhist scripture, scholars are now discovering how it offers insight into the nature of an ultimate reality perceived through intuitive wisdom. Fascinatingly, quantum physicists are increasingly discovering interesting parallels between science and the basic insights of The Heart Sutra. In this important offering, Mu Soeng shows how the intellectual and the intuitive can begin to meet. In offering a commentary on this important piece of the world’s great religious literature, The Heart of the Universe establishes a broad context to encounter The Heart Sutra on many levels — historical, spiritual, and empirical — each serving to interdependently illuminate the other.

SUT533 - Diamond Sūtra

SUT533 - Diamond Sūtra (3 Units)
Prerequisites
Textbook: The Diamond Sutra and the Sutra of Hui-Neng by A. F. Price, Wong Mou-lam, W. Y. Evans-Wentz and Christmas Humphreys
9 week course

The Diamond Sutra, composed in India in the fourth century CE, is one of the most treasured works of Buddhist literature and is the oldest existing printed book in the world. It is known as the Diamond Sutra because its teachings are said to be like diamonds that cut away all dualistic thought, releasing one from the attachment to objects and bringing one to the further shore of enlightenment. The format of this important sutra is presented as a conversation between the Buddha and one of his disciples.

SUT534 - Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra

SUT534 - Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra (3 Units) 
Prerequisites: Must have received Zen Priest Precepts
Textbook: Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra
9 week course beginning the week of

The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra (Sanskrit: लंकावतारसूत्र Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra; traditional Chinese:楞伽經; pinyin: léngqié jīng) is a sutra of Mahāyāna Buddhism. The sūtra recounts a teaching primarily between the Buddha and a bodhisattva named Mahāmati ("Great Wisdom"). The sūtra is set in Laṅkā, the island fortress capital of Rāvaṇa, the king ofrākṣasas. The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra figured prominently in the development of Chinese, Tibetan andJapanese Buddhism. It is notably an important sūtra in Chinese Chán and its Japanese version, Zen.

SUT535 - Perfect Enlightenment Sūtra

SUT535 - Perfect Enlightenment Sūtra (3 Units)
Textbook: The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment (PDF) by A. Charles Muller
9 week course 

The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment, used in monastic education for more than a millennium (probably composed in the eighth century), is a concise guide to the key paradigms of the practice systems of the East Asian meditation schools (Ch'an, Son, and Zen). It has been most popular in the Chinese and Korean schools. As Zen students, there is value to studying this Mahayana teaching as it employs many different ways to try to get people of different aptitudes to wake up. We will also see how it also helps the reader to understand the process of Sutra development.


In this course we will study this great teaching. The class will consist of reading assignments, video lectures, forum activities, quizzes and of course, a professor will be available. The ultimate goals of this class are to study this book, to see what we can glean from it as far as how to practice and how to teach others to practice. We will also focus on the development of the Sutra as it works to to help different audiences.