Brooklyn College

Zen Contemplative Studies (ZCS)  is a sub-field of Contemplative Studies. The mission of ZCS is to foster an academic community and culture of learning, teaching, and soteriological practice rooted in the Buddha's teachings. Adherence to the basic teaching of non-self or anatman, namely lack of substantial internal essence of things, impermanence, and interdependence on individuals and things. In this sense, ZCS goes beyond the individualist concept of well-being to consider the Zen Master Dogen’s famous phrase “to study the self is to forget the self” from an ecological perspective. 

About the instructor::  My name is Chia-ju Chang. I teach in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Brooklyn College (CUNY). My research ranges from ecocriticism, animal studies to Zen contemplative studies. I am a Zen practitioner and have studied Zen in the tradition of the Rinzai-Ōbaku (Ch. Linji Huangbo) since the mid-1990s. I became a Zen teacher in early 2000.