# Zen: Buddhist Sutras — Four sutras, one quiet shelf

> Four sutras, one quiet shelf (iPhone/iPad app by CHUNG CHENG CHIU.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/zen-buddhist-sutras/id6805272436 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [CHUNG CHENG CHIU](https://appshunter.io/developer/1852932294)
- Category: Books, Reference
- Price: Free with in-app purchases
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 16.4 · 19 MB
- Languages: American English, French (France), German (Germany), Japanese, European Spanish, Chinese (Traditional, Taiwan)
- Released: 2026-08-31
- Data updated: 2026-10-10

## What is Zen?

With gratitude to Zen teacher Lin Gu-fang for his guidance and teaching. To share the Dharma, all four books are free to read and to hear read aloud, forever, with free translation into English, Japanese, German, French, and Spanish, so that more people around the world may come to know Zen and the good it brings.

One quiet shelf, four classics.

The Heart Sutra — Xuanzang's Chinese, all 260 characters of it, in the seven sections of Fazang's Tang-dynasty outline. This one is free in full, including every editorial explanation and five-language translation. The Diamond Sutra — Kumārajīva's classical Chinese, 32 chapters, 129 passages. The Dhammapada — a verse anthology in its third-century Chinese translation, 39 chapters, 758 stanzas by the chapter headings' own count. The Platform Sutra — the recorded teaching of Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch of Chan, compiled by his disciple Fahai: the one work written in China that Chinese Buddhism honors with the title "sutra."

All four set in a serif face on a quiet, paper-toned page.

EDITORIAL EXPLANATIONS — INCLUDED, NOT GENERATED LIVE
Every passage in all four books includes a fixed Traditional Chinese editorial text: a faithful rendering, a fluent modern version, and explanations of key Buddhist terms. Where more than one reading is reasonable, the principal reading is retained and the ambiguity is stated. Nothing is added merely to force a doctrinal conclusion. In English, the explanation panel shows the human-edited translation of the passage together with notes on its key terms, translated from the Chinese editorial text with AI assistance and then reviewed — and labeled as such. Everything is included in the app and works offline on any device.

FIVE-LANGUAGE TRANSLATION — FREE AND UNLIMITED
Read any passage in English, Japanese, German, French, or Spanish. All four books have fixed, human-edited translations — no network and no special device needed. Terms follow each book's own source — Sanskrit for the Diamond Sutra, Pali for the Dhammapada; the Platform Sutra's Chan vocabulary is rendered by sense, never by invented transliteration.

EVERY EDITION, FULLY DOCUMENTED
The Diamond Sutra's main text follows the Ming–Qing received edition, with all 58 variants against Jiang Weinong's collated edition marked passage by passage — editorial fact. The Dhammapada and the Platform Sutra are built from public-domain texts, proofread character by character. The Heart Sutra takes only the public-domain stream of characters — the punctuation and division are our own — and is checked against the full quotation in chapter 19 of Journey to the West: 260 characters each, differing in exactly one. Every source and every editorial judgment is laid out under About This Edition in each book.

READ ALOUD
Read one passage, or play a whole chapter or a whole book straight through; stop midway and it picks up where you left off. Uses the iOS system voices — pick yours under Reading Voice in the app's settings. Older devices welcome.

DESIGNED WITH RESTRAINT
· No ads, no account, no data collection
· For iPhone and iPad
· No live AI generation anywhere in the app; the origin of the translated term notes is stated on screen

BOOK BY BOOK
The Heart Sutra is free in full, with nothing to buy. Each of the others is subscribed to or bought outright on its own — mix freely; canceling one never affects another. Unlocking a book gives access to all of its fixed editorial explanations; reading, listening, and five-language translation remain free. You can try the complete editorial explanations for seven days from the first time you open each book. Subscriptions are billed to your Apple Account, renew 24 hours before each period ends, and can be canceled anytime in Settings › Apple Account › Subscriptions.

Terms of Use (standard EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy policy: https://sayhow.app/diamond

May each reading be a moment of turning inward.

## Pricing and in-app purchases

Base price: Free.

**Subscriptions**

| Subscription | Price | Period |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Diamant-Sutra Jährlich | $2.99 | per year |
| Diamant-Sutra Monatlich | $0.29 | per month |
| Dhammapada Monatlich | $0.29 | per month |
| Dhammapada Jährlich | $2.99 | per year |
| Plattform-Sutra Monatlich | $0.29 | per month |
| Plattform-Sutra Jährlich | $2.99 | per year |

**One-time purchases**

| Purchase | Price | Type |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Diamant-Sutra Dauerzugang | $9.99 | one-time |
| Dhammapada Dauerzugang | $9.99 | one-time |
| Plattform-Sutra Dauerzugang | $9.99 | one-time |


## Is Zen safe?

Not enough ratings yet to assess Zen.

## Is Zen legit?

Zen: Buddhist Sutras appears legitimate, with a few gaps. The AppsHunter Legitimacy Score for Zen is 65 out of 100 points across 7 verification signals from App Store and developer data.


## Version history (last 4 releases)

### 1.1 — 2026-10-01

Zen now runs on iOS 16.4 and later, so devices that can't update to iOS 17, such as iPhone 8, iPhone X, and iPad (5th generation), can read, listen to, and translate all four books.

New Background Sound: tap the music note at the top right of a book’s contents or reading page. In Settings, choose which of the five loops take turns (Guqin, Piano, Guzheng and Flowing Water, Lo-fi, Rain and Wooden Fish). The music quiets down automatically while text is read aloud.

You can now check for updates in Settings; when a new version is on the App Store, Settings lets you know.

Fixed the Lock Screen play button: after pausing, it sometimes couldn't be switched back to play.

### 1.0.2 — 2026-09-30

Playing a whole book now reads only the scripture itself. The section titles were added by later editors and are not part of what is recited; a longer pause now marks where each section begins. To hear them, turn on "Announce section titles" in Settings, under Read Aloud.

Every passage in all four books now comes with a fixed editorial explanation instead of one generated live by AI, and the five-language translations are all fixed, human-edited texts. In English, the explanation shows the translation of the passage and notes on its key Buddhist terms; the notes were translated from the Chinese editorial text with AI assistance and then reviewed.

The app no longer uses Apple Intelligence: everything is built in, so translations and explanations work on every device.

Translations now open the way explanations do: turn your iPhone sideways and the passage sits on the left, the translation on the right, for reading side by side. For read-aloud, Meijia (Premium) is recommended, and the Reading Voice page shows how to download it. The first time you open the app after updating, a short introduction covers both.

At the end of each section you can continue straight into the next, and tapping the section title at the top of the reading page jumps to any section in the book. The explanation and translation panels now have previous and next buttons at the bottom, for reading passage after passage without closing the panel.

While the app reads aloud in the background, the Lock Screen shows a playback card: pause and resume anytime, and skip to the previous or next passage during continuous playback. The bookshelf, contents, and reading pages now share the same look as Settings, with a paper-toned background, serif headings, and seal-red accents.

### 1.0.1 — 2026-09-02

New: the Heart Sutra — Xuanzang's 260 characters in Fazang's seven sections, **free in full, with unlimited AI commentary and translation**. A new ensō icon. Pick your reading voice; play a whole chapter or a whole book straight through, and pick up where you left off. AI translation is now free and unlimited in every book.

### 1.0 — 2026-08-31

No release notes.

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All apps by CHUNG CHENG CHIU: https://appshunter.io/developer/1852932294

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-10-10.*