David Hinton
The Carefree-Ease Record
In this radical new translation of a Ch’an (Zen) classic, discover the Taoist roots of “carefree ease,” the effortless joy of an enlightened mind in harmony with all of nature.
This twelfth-century collection of one hundred kung-ans, or koans, is an essential text for students of Ch’an and Zen. These miniature masterpieces of Chinese literature—brief records of enigmatic encounters between teacher and student—offer a unique way of penetrating directly into the essence of Ch’an teaching, and Hinton affords readers an opportunity to experience these koans in English like never before by returning us to the original understanding of its zany storytelling and profound wisdom. Paring away the later commentaries that are usually presented with these koans, Hinton lets the original stories shine on their own, revealing themselves as nothing less than poetic expressions of the awakened mind. A far cry from the transcendence of life-and-death that typifies the traditional Buddhist goal of nirvana, this awakening is distinctly earthy and grounded in the rhythms of nature, shaped by the centuries of Taoist tradition that preceded Ch’an. “Carefree ease,” writes Hinton, “is to move through life with the ‘profound tranquility’ of the Cosmos itself as it unfurls through its perennial transformations.”
This is the final volume in David Hinton’s momentous project to translate the three classic koan collections from ancient China. The other two volumes are: The Blue-Cliff Record and No-Gate Gateway.
Praise for Carefree Ease Record:
Here comes David Hinton with a lively and original rendering of The Carefree-Ease Record, one of the essential koan texts. The one hundred stories here are part of a great curriculum for opening the heart and mind. Hinton has given us a noble gift.
—Roshi John Tarrant
Praise for David Hinton's Other Ch'an Books:
David Hinton adds something rare: a deeply informed and radically different take on Ch’an. As developed here and in earlier books, Hinton sees Ch’an not so much a school of Buddhism as a uniquely indigenous Taoist mysticism in which awakening is radical embeddedness in the natural world rather than transcendence of it—an important perspective in our time of planetary crisis.
—Roshi Norman Fischer, author of The World Could Be Otherwise
Hinton’s deep understanding of the Taoist roots of Ch’an shine a light on the Zen practice of today, taking us back in a thrilling way beyond the Japanese rigor and aesthetics, beyond the mythical T’ang Dynasty flourishing of Ch’an’s great ancestors, back to its Taoist roots in the first millennium BCE—and even beyond them, into the mists of its Paleolithic origins.
—Roshi Henry Shukman
— from the book jacket
Shambhala (Fall 2025)