Download or read book Zen Teachings in Challenging Times written by Patricia Dai-En Bennage and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-08 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty-five leading American teachers of Soto Zen Buddhism speak to all who have suffered and sought spiritual guidance, revealing personal stories of sickness, death, political anger, fear, jealousy, environmental corruption, disillusionment, and longing for peace. They offer insight to how to stand with poise through the woes of existence and emerge transformed by our suffering. The transformative nature of Zen practice gives strength to face all possibilities. The entire book wears the mantle of Kanzeon, the goddess of mercy, the one who hears the cries of suffering and offers the loving hand of compassion to all living beings.
Download or read book Solid Ground written by Sylvia Boorstein and published by Parallax Press. This book was released on 2007-04-03 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lively, topical guide on how to respond to life’s inevitable difficulties—from personal crises to broader societal challenges The issue of difficulty in life is at the very essence of Buddhism. One can reasonably translate the first noble truth as, “life is full of difficulties,” with the remaining noble truths serving as Buddhism’s analysis of those difficulties and how to work with them. In Solid Ground, celebrated Buddhist teachers Sylvia Boorstein, Zoketsu Norman Fisher, and Tsoknyi Rinpoche use their diverse wisdom to address the immediate and practical concerns of our lives, including individual crises as well as the political, economic, and social challenges society is currently facing. Together, they explore the most basic and profound questions of Buddhism: the difficulty of life in general and how we can work with that and ameliorate it. Filled with humor and personal stories, Solid Ground offers specific teachings for concrete situations as well as a way to explore the larger questions of finding equanimity in difficult times.
Download or read book Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo written by Kosho Uchiyama Roshi and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-11-04 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abandon your treasured delusions and hit the road with one of the most important Zen masters of twentieth-century Japan. Eschewing the entrapments of vanity, power, and money, "Homeless" Kodo Sawaki Roshi refused to accept a permanent position as a temple abbot, despite repeated offers. Instead, he lived a traveling, "homeless" life, going from temple to temple, student to student, teaching and instructing and never allowing himself to stray from his chosen path. He is responsible for making Soto Zen available to the common people outside of monasteries. His teachings are short, sharp, and powerful. Always clear, often funny, and sometimes uncomfortably close to home, they jolt us into awakening. Kosho Uchiyama expands and explains his teacher's wisdom with his commentary. Trained in Western philosophy, he draws parallels between Zen teachings and the Bible, Descartes, and Pascal. Shohaku Okumura has also added his own commentary, grounding his teachers’ power and sagacity for the contemporary, Western practitioner. Experience the timeless, practical wisdom of three generations of Zen masters.
Download or read book Challenging Times written by Vishvapani and published by Windhorse Publications. This book was released on 2013-10-23 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Facing illness or chronic pain, coming to terms with Alzheimer's, forgiving a sister's murderer: these stories of courage and hard-earned wisdom show the rewards of opening our hearts when things get tough. Ordinary people and experienced teachers share what happened when they followed the Buddha's advice to turn towards their experience instead of running away from it. These accounts of personal transformation show how we can find joy, forgiveness, and compassion in the struggles of daily life.
Download or read book Taking the Path of Zen written by Robert Aitken and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2015-12-15 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a fine art to presenting complex ideas with simplicity and insight, in a manner that both guides and inspires. In Taking the Path of Zen Robert Aitken presents the practice, lifestyle, rationale, and ideology of Zen Buddhism with remarkable clarity. The foundation of Zen is the practice of zazen, or mediation, and Aitken Roshi insists that everything flows from the center. He discusses correct breathing, posture, routine, teacher-student relations, and koan study, as well as common problems and milestones encountered in the process. Throughout the book the author returns to zazen, offering further advice and more advanced techniques. The orientation extends to various religious attitudes and includes detailed discussions of the Three Treasures and the Ten Precepts of Zen Buddhism. Taking the Path of Zen will serve as orientation and guide for anyone who is drawn to the ways of Zen, from the simply curious to the serious Zen student.
Download or read book Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet written by Thich Nhat Hanh and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER “When you wake up and you see that the Earth is not just the environment, the Earth is us, you touch the nature of interbeing. And at that moment you can have real communication with the Earth… We have to wake up together. And if we wake up together, then we have a chance. Our way of living our life and planning our future has led us into this situation. And now we need to look deeply to find a way out, not only as individuals, but as a collective, a species.” -- Thich Nhat Hanh We face a potent intersection of crises: ecological destruction, rising inequality, racial injustice, and the lasting impacts of a devastating pandemic. The situation is beyond urgent. To face these challenges, we need to find ways to strengthen our clarity, compassion, and courage to act. Beloved Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh is blazingly clear: there’s one thing we all have the power to change, which can make all the difference, and that is our mind. Our way of looking, seeing, and thinking determines every choice we make, the everyday actions we take or avoid, how we relate to those we love or oppose, and how we react in a crisis. Mindfulness and the radical insights of Zen meditation can give us the strength and clarity we need to help create a regenerative world in which all life is respected. Filled with Thich Nhat Hanh’s inspiring meditations, Zen stories and experiences from his own activism, as well as commentary from Sister True Dedication, one of his students Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet shows us a new way of seeing and living that can bring healing and harmony to ourselves, our relationships, and the Earth.
Download or read book Teachings of Zen written by Thomas Cleary and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 1997-12-16 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zen Buddhism emerged in China some fifteen centuries ago and remained the most dynamic and influential spiritual movement in Asia for more than a millennium. Though the teachings of the first Zen masters are sometimes considered innovation, they were actually a return to the core of Buddhist teaching and to an understanding of the importance of the personal experience of enlightenment. This anthology presents talks, sayings, and records of heart-to-heart encounters to show the essence of Zen teaching through the words of the Zen masters themselves. The selections have been made from the voluminous Zen canon for their accessibility, their clarity, and above all their practical effectiveness in fostering insight.
Download or read book Being Zen written by Ezra Bayda and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2003-03-25 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “straightforward, simple, and wise” guide to living an awakened life through mindfulness and meditation (Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart) We can use whatever life presents to strengthen our spiritual practice—including the turmoil of daily life. What we need is the willingness to just be with our experiences—whether they are painful or pleasing—and open ourselves to the reality of our lives without trying to fix or change anything. But doing this requires that we confront our most deeply rooted fears and assumptions in order to gradually become free of the constrictions and suffering they create. Then we can awaken to the loving-kindness that is at the heart of our being. While many books aspire to bring meditation into everyday experience, Ezra Bayda's Being Zen gives us practical ways to actually do it, introducing techniques that enable the reader to foster qualities essential to continued spiritual awakening. Topics include how to cultivate: • Perseverance: staying with anger, fear, and other distressing emotions. • Stillness: abiding with chaotic experiences without becoming overwhelmed. • Clarity: seeing through the conditioned beliefs and fears that "run" us. • Direct experience: encountering the physical reality of the present moment—even when that moment is exactly where we don't want to be. Like Pema Chödrön, the best-selling author of When Things Fall Apart, Ezra Bayda writes with clear, heartfelt simplicity, using his own life stories to illustrate the teachings in an immediate and accessible way that will appeal to a broad spectrum of readers.
Download or read book When Things Fall Apart written by Pema Chödrön and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2005 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How to deal with painful emotions.
Download or read book The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma written by Bodhidharma and published by North Point Press. This book was released on 2009-11-01 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fifth-century Indian Buddhist monk, Bodhidharma is credited with bringing Zen to China. Although the tradition that traces its ancestry back to him did not flourish until nearly two hundred years after his death, today millions of Zen Buddhists and students of kung fu claim him as their spiritual father. While others viewed Zen practice as a purification of the mind or a stage on the way to perfect enlightenment, Bodhidharma equated Zen with buddhahood and believed that it had a place in everyday life. Instead of telling his disciples to purify their minds, he pointed them to rock walls, to the movements of tigers and cranes, to a hollow reed floating across the Yangtze. This bilingual edition, the only volume of the great teacher's work currently available in English, presents four teachings in their entirety. "Outline of Practice" describes the four all-inclusive habits that lead to enlightenment, the "Bloodstream Sermon" exhorts students to seek the Buddha by seeing their own nature, the "Wake-up Sermon" defends his premise that the most essential method for reaching enlightenment is beholding the mind. The original Chinese text, presented on facing pages, is taken from a Ch'ing dynasty woodblock edition.
Download or read book We Were Made for These Times written by Kaira Jewel Lingo and published by Parallax Press. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In ten concise chapters, you'll learn powerful ways to meet life's challenges with wisdom, resilience, and ease. We all go through times when it feels like the ground is being pulled out from under us. What we relied on as steady and solid may change or even appear to vanish. In this era of global disruption, threats to our individual, social, and planetary safety abound, and at times life can feel overwhelming. Not only are loss and separation painful, but even positive changes can cause great stress. Yet life is full of change: birth, death, marriage, divorce; a new relationship; losing or starting a job; beginning a new phase in life or ending one. Change is stressful, even when it is much desired or anticipated—the unknown can feel scary and threatening. In We Were Made for These Times, the extraordinary mindfulness teacher Kaira Jewel Lingo imparts accessible advice on navigating difficult times of transition, drawing on Buddhist teachings on impermanence to help you establish equanimity and resilience. Each chapter in We Were Made for These Times holds an essential teaching and meditation, unfolding a step-by-step process to nurture deeper freedom and stability in daily life. Time-honored teachings will help you develop ease, presence, and self-compassion, supporting you to release the fear and doubt that hold you back.
Download or read book When Things Fall Apart written by Pema Chödrön and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2005-01-11 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes a traditional Buddhist approach to suffering and how embracing the painful situation and using communication, negative habits, and challenging experiences leads to emotional growth and happiness.
Download or read book The Way Out is in written by Thich Nhat Hanh and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh is best known as a prolific author, poet, teacher, scholar and peace activist. Yet he is also a master calligrapher, distilling ancient Buddhist teachings into simple phrases that resonate with our modern times, capturing and expressing his lifetime of meditative insight, peace and compassion. This book offers a rare opportunity to spend time in the presence of his beautiful creations. For Thich Nhat Hanh, creating calligraphy is more than creating art - it is also a meditative practice. He is fully present for every moment, from drinking his tea, to sitting down and taking a brush, and using the tea to make the ink. Each calligraphy is made of mindful sitting, breathing, walking, smiling - and love.
Download or read book No Nonsense Zen for Beginners written by Jason Quinn and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2021-08-31 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Live mindfully through Zen Buddhism What is Zen? Are there different types? How can you make it part of everyday life? No-Nonsense Zen for Beginners offers an easy starting point to living more intentionally through Zen. Starting with the basics—like what Zen is and how it spread across the globe—experienced Zen instructor Jason Quinn teaches and explores how anyone can use it to live a life filled with more clarity, love, and compassion. Go beyond other meditation books with: A four-part approach—Take things one step at a time as you learn about the history of Zen, important concepts, core teachings, and essential practices. Straightforward Q&A—Understand the basics of Zen with a simple format that breaks information down into easy, digestible questions and answers. Everyday Zen—Find stories and guidance that show how the principles of Zen can help bring peace in day-to-day life. Learn to live more intentionally through Zen thanks to this no-nonsense guide.
Download or read book China Root written by David Hinton and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A beautifully compelling and liberating guide to the original nature of Zen in ancient China by renowned author and translator David Hinton. Buddhism migrated from India to China in the first century C.E., and Ch'an (Japanese: Zen) is generally seen as China's most distinctive and enduring form of Buddhism. In China Root, however, David Hinton shows how Ch'an was in fact a Buddhist-influenced extension of Taoism, China's native system of spiritual philosophy. Unlike Indian Buddhism's abstract sensibility, Ch'an was grounded in an earthy and empirically-based vision. Exploring this vision, Hinton describes Ch'an as a kind of anti-Buddhism. A radical and wild practice aspiring to a deeply ecological liberation: the integration of individual consciousness with landscape and with a Cosmos seen as harmonious and alive. In China Root, Hinton describes this original form of Zen with his trademark clarity and elegance, each chapter exploring in enlightening ways a core Ch'an concept--such as meditation, mind, Buddha, awakening--as it was originally understood and practiced in ancient China. Finally, by examining a range of standard translations in the Appendix, Hinton reveals how this original understanding and practice of Ch'an/Zen is almost entirely missing in contemporary American Zen, because it was lost in Ch'an's migration from China through Japan and on to the West. Whether you practice Zen or not, taking this journey on the wings of Hinton's remarkable insight and powerful writing will transform how you understand yourself and the world.
Download or read book Training in Compassion written by Norman Fischer and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2013-01-08 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A prominent Zen teacher offers a “direct, penetrating, and powerful” perspective on a popular mind training practice of Tibetan Buddhism (Rick Hanson, author of Buddha’s Brain) Lojong is the Tibetan Buddhist practice of working with short phrases (called "slogans") to generate bodhichitta, the heart and mind of enlightened compassion. With roots tracing back to the 900 A.D., the practice has gained more Western adherents over the past two decades, partly due to the influence of American Buddhist teachers like Pema Chödrön. Its effectiveness and accessibility have moved the practice out of its Buddhist context and into the lives of non-Buddhists across the world. It's in this spirit that Norman Fischer offers his unique, Zen-based commentary on the Lojong. Though traditionally a practice of Tibetan Buddhism, the power of the Lojong extends to other Buddhist traditions—and even to other spiritual traditions as well. As Fischer explores the 59 slogans through a Zen lens, he shows how people from a range of faiths and backgrounds can use Lojong to generate the insight, resilience, and compassion they seek.
Download or read book A Buddha from Korea written by and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2001-05-01 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Buddha from Korea is intended to open a window on Zen Buddhism in old Korea. The book centers on a translation of teachings of the great fourteenth-century Korean Zen adept known as T'aego, who was the leading representative of Zen in his own time and place. This is an account of Zen Buddhism direct from an authentic source.
