The Institute For Zen Studies

Japanese Site

  • Study groups
  • Publications, etc.
  • Scholarly resources
  • Software

Scholarly  resources

Zen text downloads

The Institute for Zen Studies offers a variety of information on Zen-related publications. Among them is the Black Bean Database, which contains a number of digital texts available for downloading.

The Black Bean Database

Date 2010/3/30
Outline In Zen, the term “black beans” refers to words and letters. Texts included in the Black Bean Database are primarily Buddhist and Zen texts digitalized by the Institute.  There is no charge for download service, but the Institute requests that further distribution be limited to the individual level.