Zen Buddhism: An Art Historian's Perspective (Go Big Read)

Meditation in pursuit of emptiness and questions that have no rational answer dominate the modern view of Zen as a disciplined path to deep insight into the nature of things that is different from (even antithetical to) the Western pursuit of scientific knowledge and the exercise of reason. Without denying the validity of this view of Zen, I hope to present a fuller understanding of the Zen monastic community in pre-modern times, largely through a discussion of paintings by Zen monks.