A Concise Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen

With over fifteen hundred entries and forty-six illustrations, A Concise Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen is the most complete compact reference work of its kind available in the English language. It is designed not only for students and meditators but also as a tool to help familiarize all readers with Buddhist terms and concepts—such as chakra, karma, koan, nirvana, and tantra—that are encountered with increasing regularity in the literature of a wide range of fields today. The lives and teachings of important philosophers and meditation masters, the variety of practices, the basic texts and scriptures, and the range of sects and schools of thought are among the subjects covered. Pronunciation tables, a comprehensive bibliography, and a Ch’an/Zen lineage chart are also provided.

Ingrid Fischer-Schreiber, born in Vienna, Austria, is an accomplished?scholar of Buddhism, Taoism, and Chinese culture.?She is the author of The Shambhala Dictionary of Taoism, and was a contributor to A Concise Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen, The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion, and?The Dictionary of Oriental Wisdom.

Franz-Karl Ehrhard is an author, scholar, and professor of Tibetology and Buddhism at Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Germany. He is one of the editors of A Concise Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen and The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion,?and is?the author of?Buddhism in Tibet and?the Himalayas: Texts and Traditions.

Michael S. Diener is an author, Japanologist, and?scholar of Zen located in Tokyo.

A Concise Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen was translated from the German by Michael H. Kohn, (also known as Sherab Chodzin Kohn) the co-editor of the best-selling anthology The Buddha and His Teachings. He has been teaching Buddhism and meditation for more than thirty years, and he has edited a number of the books of his teacher, the Tibetan meditation master Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. He has also published numerous translations, including an acclaimed version of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.