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 Subtle Sound written by Sherry Chayat and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 1996-11-19 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maurine Stuart (1922–1990) was one of a select group of students on the leading edge of Buddhism in America: a woman who became a Zen master. In this book, she draws on down-to-earth Zen stories, her friendships with Japanese Zen teachers, and her experiences as a concert pianist to apply the inner meanings of Buddhism to practicing the basic ethics of daily living—nowness, unselfishness, compassion, and good will toward every living being. She emphasizes that inner growth comes through our own efforts and intuition, especially as we cultivate them through meditation practice. We can then take what we have learned in meditation and use it to respond to our daily lives in a straightforward and creative way, guided not by concepts or dogma, but by direct insight into the reality of the present moment.
Download or read book Infinite Circle written by Bernie Glassman and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2003-11-11 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This introduction to Zen teachings is a “watershed book for Zen students, a good study companion and a trustworthy guide” (Norman Fischer, author of The World Could Be Otherwise) In Infinite Circle, one of America's most distinctive Zen teachers takes a back-to-basics approach to Zen. Glassman illuminates three key teachings of Zen Buddhism, offering line-by-line commentary in clear, direct language: • The Heart Sutra: the Buddha's essential discourse on emptiness, a central sutra of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition. • "The Identity of Relative and Absolute": an eighth-century poem by Shih-t'ou His-ch'ien, a key text of the Soto Zen school. • The Zen precepts: the rules of conduct for laypeople and monks. His commentaries are based on workshops he gave as Abbot of the Zen Community of New York, and they contain within them the principles that became the foundation for the Greyston Mandala of community development organizations and the Zen Peacemaker Order.
Download or read book Mud and Water written by Bassui Tokusho and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-02-08 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fourteenth-century Zen master Bassui was recognized as one of the most important Zen teachers of his time. Accessible and eloquent, these teachings cut to the heart of the great matter of Zen, pointing directly to the importance of seeing our own original nature and recognizing it as Buddhahood itself. Bassui is taking familiar concepts in Buddhism and recasting them in an essential Zen light. Though he lived centuries ago in a culture vastly different from our own, Zen Master Bassui speaks with a voice that spans time and space to address our own modern challenges - in our lives and spiritual practice. Like the revered Master Dogen several generations before him, Bassui was dissatisfied with what passed for Zen training, and taught a radically reenergized form of Zen, emphasizing deep and direct penetration into one's own true nature. And also like Dogen, Bassui uses powerful and often poetic language to take familiar Buddhist concepts recast them in a radically non-dual Zen light, making ancient doctrines vividly relevant. This edition of Mud and Water contains several teachings never before translated.
Download or read book The Truth of This Life written by Katherine Thanas and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2018-01-23 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Accessible and elegant teachings from a well-loved and revered woman Zen teacher. “The truth and joy of this life is that we cannot change things as they are.” The import of those words can be found beautifully expressed in the work of the woman who spoke them, Katherine Thanas (1927–2012)—in her art, in her writing, and especially in her Zen teaching. Fearlessly direct and endlessly curious, Katherine’s understanding of Zen was inseparable from her affinity for the arts. She was an MFA student studying painting with Richard Diebenkorn, the preeminent Californian abstract painter, when she met Shunryu Suzuki, author of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, in the sixties. Soon thereafter she decided to drop painting to dedicate herself to Zen, which she did for the last forty years of her life. In these essential teachings taken from her dharma talks—which make up her only book—her love of art and literature shine through in her elegant prose and her vast references, from poets William Stafford and Naomi Shihab Nye to the Zen teachings of Dogen and Robert Aitken. Ranging on subjects from the practice of zazen to the meaning of life, Katherine urges us to “develop an insatiable appetite for inner awareness, to become proficient with this mind.” This slim volume is an important contribution by a well-loved and revered teacher.
Download or read book Teachings of the Earth written by John Daido Loori and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2007-09-18 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to Zen teaching, everything in the universe exists interdependently, so valuing the welfare of one being over another, or of humans over the planet, makes no sense at all. This teaching, which can empower us to care passionately about the earth and its future, is not only a Zen principle, it’s something that comes up for anyone who carefully investigates the nature of reality. It’s a lesson found everywhere we look in nature. And the idea is also found in writings by figures as diverse as Lao Tzu, Walt Whitman, Hermann Hesse, and Henry David Thoreau. John Daido Loori reveals the underlying environmental ethic animating these teachings and shows how it can be a wellspring for our appreciation of the earth in the new millennium.
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 Dropping Ashes on the Buddha written by Stephen Mitchell and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic guide for Zen students pursuing the true way. “Somebody comes into the Zen center with a lighted cigarette, walks up to the Buddha-statue, blows smoke in its face and drops ashes on its lap. You are standing there. What can you do?” This is a problem that Zen Master Seung Sahn was fond of posing to his American students who attended his Zen centers. Dropping Ashes on the Buddha is a delightful, irreverent, and often hilariously funny living record of the dialogue between Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn and his American students. Consisting of dialogues, stories, formal Zen interviews, Dharma speeches, and letters using the Zen Master’s actual words in spontaneous, living interaction, this book is a fresh presentation of the Zen teaching method of “instant dialogue” between Master and student which, through the use of astonishment and paradox, leads to an understanding of ultimate reality.
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 Zen Is Right Now written by Shunryu Suzuki and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spirituality & Practice “Best Books of 2021” Award Winner In this new collection of quotes from Shunryu Suzuki Roshi and stories from his students, the presence, wisdom, and humor of a great Zen teacher come alive once more. The teachings of Shunryu Suzuki have served for innumerable people as the gateway to Zen practice and meditation. In Zen Is Right Now, devoted student and biographer David Chadwick sheds new light on Suzuki’s presence and teachings through selected quotes from his lectures and a variety of stories told by his students. Complementary to another collection about Suzuki, Zen Is Right Here, this book offers a joyful bounty of anecdotes and insights, revealing a playful and deeply wise teacher who delighted in paradox and laughed often. Each of the stories and quotes presented here is an example of the versatile and timeless quality evident in Suzuki’s teaching, showing that the potential for attaining enlightenment exists right now, in this very moment.
Download or read book The Zen Teachings of Master Lin chi written by Yixuan and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Renowned scholar Burton Watson's translation exactingly depicts the life and teachings of the great ninth-century Chinese Zen master Lin-chi, one of the most highly regarded of the T'ang period masters.
Download or read book Zen written by Lucien Stryk and published by Artisan Publishers. This book was released on 2000 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illustrated selection of major Zen writings, including the Gateless gate koan collection and the Ox-herding pictures with their verses.
Download or read book Opening the Hand of Thought written by Kosho Uchiyama and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2005-06-10 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over thirty years, Opening the Hand of Thought has offered an introduction to Zen Buddhism and meditation unmatched in clarity and power. This is the revised edition of Kosho Uchiyama's singularly incisive classic. This new edition contains even more useful material: new prefaces, an index, and extended endnotes, in addition to a revised glossary. As Jisho Warner writes in her preface, Opening the Hand of Thought "goes directly to the heart of Zen practice... showing how Zen Buddhism can be a deep and life-sustaining activity." She goes on to say, "Uchiyama looks at what a person is, what a self is, how to develop a true self not separate from all things, one that can settle in peace in the midst of life." By turns humorous, philosophical, and personal, Opening the Hand of Thought is above all a great book for the Buddhist practitioner. It's a perfect follow-up for the reader who has read Zen Meditation in Plain English and is especially useful for those who have not yet encountered a Zen teacher.
Download or read book Encouraging Words written by Robert Aitken and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 1993 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of Taking the Path of Zen and The Mind of Clover--one of the few Western Zen Buddhist masters--offers a collection of specific teachings he has given his own students during the past two decades--a time of volatile cultural and spiritual changes. Includes a glossary, a gathering of important sutras, and an annotated reading list.
Download or read book Zen Seeds written by Shundo Aoyama and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2019-08-06 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a living treasure of Japanese Zen, an inspiring collection of teachings about the power of Buddhist practice to help you transform suffering and touch the marrow of your life. In this sparkling collection of teachings, Japanese Zen master Shundo Aoyama Roshi offers an entry to the authentic practice of Zen Buddhism. Or, rather, she offers a myriad of entries—for Zen Seeds, as its title suggests, is comprised of brief chapters meant to plant seeds of wisdom and compassion in readers. Ranging from classical Zen sources, such as the teachings of Dogen and the encounter stories of the koans, to anecdotes from Aoyama’s fascinating life and from those of her many students, the book paints a profoundly compelling portrait of the transformative possibilities of Zen. A pioneering female leader in the Soto Zen school, Aoyama Roshi demonstrates the power of practice for anyone seeking to lead a life of greater conviction and spiritual nourishment.
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 The Essential Teachings of Zen Master Hakuin written by Hakuin Ekaku and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2010-07-13 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fiery and intensely dynamic Zen teacher and artist, Hakuin (1685–1768) is credited with almost single-handedly revitalizing Japanese Zen after three hundred years of decline. As a teacher, he placed special emphasis on koan practice, inventing many new koans himself, including the famous "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" As an artist, Hakuin used calligraphy and painting to create "visual Dharma"—teachings that powerfully express the nature of enlightenment. The text translated here offers an excellent introduction to the work of this extraordinary teacher. Hakuin sets forth his vision of authentic Zen teaching and practice, condemning his contemporaries, whom he held responsible for the decline of Zen, and exhorting his students to dedicate themselves to "breaking through the Zen barrier." Included are reproductions of several of Hakuin’s finest calligraphies and paintings.
