Download or read book Zen Sand written by Victor Sogen Hori and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2003-02-28 with total page 785 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zen Sand is a classic collection of verses aimed at aiding practitioners of kôan meditation to negotiate the difficult relationship between insight and language. As such it represents a major contribution to both Western Zen practice and English-language Zen scholarship. In Japan the traditional Rinzai Zen kôan curriculum includes the use of jakugo, or "capping phrases." Once a monk has successfully replied to a kôan, the Zen master orders the search for a classical verse to express the monk’s insight into the kôan. Special collections of these jakugo were compiled as handbooks to aid in that search. Until now, Zen students in the West, lacking this important resource, have been severely limited in carrying out this practice. Zen Sand combines and translates two standard jakugo handbooks and opens the way for incorporating this important tradition fully into Western Zen practice. For the scholar, Zen Sand provides a detailed description of the jakugo practice and its place in the overall kôan curriculum, as well as a brief history of the Zen phrase book. This volume also contributes to the understanding of East Asian culture in a broader sense.

Download or read book Sudden Music written by David Rothenberg and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The accompanying audio disc features eleven original compositions by Rothenberg, none previously released on CD. Included are a duet with clarinet and white-crested laughing bird and a duet with clarinet and Samchillian TipTipTip Cheeepeeeee, and electronic computer instrument played by its inventor, Leon Gruenbaum. Also featured are multicultural works blending South Indian veena and Turkish G-clarinet with spoken text from the Upanishads; a piece commissioned by the Tanglewood Contemporary Music Festival with readings of texts by E.O. Wilson accompanied by clarinet and electronics; and improvisations based on Tibetan Buddhist music, Japanese shakuhachi music, and the image of a black crow on white snow."--BOOK JACKET.

Download or read book The Essential Dogen written by Kazuaki Tanahashi and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2013-04-30 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These pithy and powerful readings provide a perfect introduction to the teachings of Zen master Dogen—and will inspire spiritual practice in people of all traditions Eihei Dogen (1200–1253), founder of the Soto School of Zen Buddhism, is one of the greatest religious, philosophical, and literary geniuses of Japan. His writings have been studied by Zen students for centuries, particularly his masterwork, Shobo Genzo or Treasury of the True Dharma Eye. This is the first book to offer the great master’s incisive wisdom in short selections taken from the whole range of his voluminous works.

Download or read book Zen and the Brain written by James H. Austin and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1999-06-04 with total page 876 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A neuroscientist and Zen practitioner interweaves the latest research on the brain with his personal narrative of Zen. Aldous Huxley called humankind's basic trend toward spiritual growth the "perennial philosophy." In the view of James Austin, the trend implies a "perennial psychophysiology"—because awakening, or enlightenment, occurs only when the human brain undergoes substantial changes. What are the peak experiences of enlightenment? How could these states profoundly enhance, and yet simplify, the workings of the brain? Zen and the Brain presents the latest evidence. In this book Zen Buddhism becomes the opening wedge for an extraordinarily wide-ranging exploration of consciousness. In order to understand which brain mechanisms produce Zen states, one needs some understanding of the anatomy, physiology, and chemistry of the brain. Austin, both a neurologist and a Zen practitioner, interweaves the most recent brain research with the personal narrative of his Zen experiences. The science is both inclusive and rigorous; the Zen sections are clear and evocative. Along the way, Austin examines such topics as similar states in other disciplines and religions, sleep and dreams, mental illness, consciousness-altering drugs, and the social consequences of the advanced stage of ongoing enlightenment.

Download or read book Zen Tradition and Transition written by Kenneth Kraft and published by Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 1988 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zen Buddhism has flourished for over a thousand years as a rich and complex spiritual tradition. While its origins lie somewhere in the remote mountains of China, today Zen Buddhism has a large number of followers in the West, and its teachings have been transmitted to a variety of cultural settings. "Zen: Tradition and Transition" is a unique anthology which encompasses both the history of Zen and its current practice all over the world. It offers for the first time an overview of Zen Buddhism which brings together contemporary Zen masters and scholars who are among the most distinguished figures in the field. Accessible to beginners as well as challenging to advanced students, "Zen: Tradition and Transition" provides an authoritative and comprehensive perspective on one of the most important spiritual and philosophical movements of our time. -- From publisher's description.

Download or read book Zen and the Ways written by Trevor Leggett and published by . This book was released on 2019-04-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Japanese Zen, all activities offer opportunities for meditation and inspiration. Trevor Leggett here explores a range of such practices.

Download or read book Bringing Zen Home written by Paula Arai and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2011-09-30 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Healing lies at the heart of Zen in the home, as Paula Arai discovered in her pioneering research on the ritual lives of Zen Buddhist laywomen. She reveals a vital stream of religious practice that flourishes outside the bounds of formal institutions through sacred rites that women develop and transmit to one another. Everyday objects and common materials are used in inventive ways. For example, polishing cloths, vivified by prayer and mantra recitation, become potent tools. The creation of beauty through the arts of tea ceremony, calligraphy, poetry, and flower arrangement become rites of healing. Bringing Zen Home brings a fresh perspective to Zen scholarship by uncovering a previously unrecognized but nonetheless vibrant strand of lay practice. The creativity of domestic Zen is evident in the ritual activities that women fashion, weaving tradition and innovation, to gain a sense of wholeness and balance in the midst of illness, loss, and anguish. Their rituals include chanting, ingesting elixirs and consecrated substances, and contemplative approaches that elevate cleaning, cooking, child-rearing, and caring for the sick and dying into spiritual disciplines. Creating beauty is central to domestic Zen and figures prominently in Arai’s analyses. She also discovers a novel application of the concept of Buddha nature as the women honor deceased loved ones as “personal Buddhas.” One of the hallmarks of the study is its longitudinal nature, spanning fourteen years of fieldwork. Arai developed a “second-person,” or relational, approach to ethnographic research prompted by recent trends in psychobiology. This allowed her to cultivate relationships of trust and mutual vulnerability over many years to inquire into not only the practices but also their ongoing and changing roles. The women in her study entrusted her with their life stories, personal reflections, and religious insights, yielding an ethnography rich in descriptive and narrative detail as well as nuanced explorations of the experiential dimensions and effects of rituals. In Bringing Zen Home, the first study of the ritual lives of Zen laywomen, Arai applies a cutting-edge ethnographic method to reveal a thriving domain of religious practice. Her work represents an important contribution on a number of fronts—to Zen studies, ritual studies, scholarship on women and religion, and the cross-cultural study of healing.

Download or read book Writing Down the Bones written by Natalie Goldberg and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2016-02-02 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than thirty years Natalie Goldberg has been challenging and cheering on writers with her books and workshops. In her groundbreaking first book, she brings together Zen meditation and writing in a new way. Writing practice, as she calls it, is no different from other forms of Zen practice—"it is backed by two thousand years of studying the mind." This thirtieth-anniversary edition includes new forewords by Julia Cameron and Bill Addison. It also includes a new preface in which Goldberg reflects on the enduring quality of the teachings here. She writes, "What have I learned about writing over these thirty years? I’ve written fourteen books, and it’s the practice here in Bones that is the foundation, sustaining and building my writing voice, that keeps me honest, teaches me how to endure the hard times and how to drop below discursive thinking, to taste the real meat of our minds and the life around us."

Download or read book How Zen Became Zen written by Morten Schlutter and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2010-04-30 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Zen Became Zen takes a novel approach to understanding one of the most crucial developments in Zen Buddhism: the dispute over the nature of enlightenment that erupted within the Chinese Chan (Zen) school in the twelfth century. The famous Linji (Rinzai) Chan master Dahui Zonggao (1089–1163) railed against "heretical silent illumination Chan" and strongly advocated kanhua (koan) meditation as an antidote. In this fascinating study, Morten Schlütter shows that Dahui’s target was the Caodong (Soto) Chan tradition that had been revived and reinvented in the early twelfth century, and that silent meditation was an approach to practice and enlightenment that originated within this "new" Chan tradition. Schlütter has written a refreshingly accessible account of the intricacies of the dispute, which is still reverberating through modern Zen in both Asia and the West. Dahui and his opponents’ arguments for their respective positions come across in this book in as earnest and relevant a manner as they must have seemed almost nine hundred years ago. Although much of the book is devoted to illuminating the doctrinal and soteriological issues behind the enlightenment dispute, Schlütter makes the case that the dispute must be understood in the context of government policies toward Buddhism, economic factors, and social changes. He analyzes the remarkable ascent of Chan during the first centuries of the Song dynasty, when it became the dominant form of elite monastic Buddhism, and demonstrates that secular educated elites came to control the critical transmission from master to disciple ("procreation" as Schlütter terms it) in the Chan School.

Download or read book Living by Vow written by Shohaku Okumura and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-06-26 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Sot Zen priest and Dharma successor of Kosho Uchiyama Roshi explores eight of Zen's most essential and universal liturgical texts and explains how the chants in these works support meditation and promote a life of freedom and compassion.

Download or read book One Zentangle A Day written by Beckah Krahula and published by . This book was released on 2012-11 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One Zentangle A Day is a beautiful interactive book teaching the principles of Zentangles as well as offering fun, related drawing exercises. Zentangles are a new trend in the drawing and paper arts world. The concept was started by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas as a way to practice focus and meditation through drawing, by using repetitive lines, marks, circles, and shapes. Each mark is called a "tangle," and you combine various tangles into patterns to create "tiles" or small square drawings. This step-by-step book is divided into 6 chapters, each with 7 daily exercises. Each exercise includes new tangles to draw in sketchbooks, teaches daily tile design, and offers tips on related art principles, and contains an inspirational "ZIA" (Zentangle Inspired Art) project on a tile that incorporates patterns, art principals, and new techniques.

Download or read book The Zen Manifesto Freedom From Oneself written by Osho and published by Fivestar. This book was released on 2023-03-17 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is time, ripe time for a Zen manifesto. The Western intelligentsia have become acquainted with Zen, have also fallen in love with Zen, but they are still trying to approach Zen from the mind. They have not yet come to the understanding that Zen has nothing to do with mind. Its tremendous job is to get you out of the prison of mind. It is not an intellectual philosophy; it is not a philosophy at all. Nor is it a religion, because it has no fictions and no lies, no consolations. It is a lion’s roar. And the greatest thing that Zen has brought into the world is freedom from oneself. All the religions have been talking about dropping your ego – but it is a very weird phenomenon: they want you to drop your ego, and the ego is just a shadow of God. God is the ego of the universe, and the ego is your personality. Just as God is the very center of existence according to religions, your ego is the center of your mind, of your personality. They have all been talking about dropping the ego, but it cannot be dropped unless God is dropped. You cannot drop a shadow or a reflection unless the source of its manifestation is destroyed.

Download or read book Installations by Architects written by Sarah Bonnemaison and published by Princeton Architectural Press. This book was released on 2009-08-12 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last few decades, a rich and increasingly diverse practice has emerged in the art world that invites the public to touch, enter, and experience the work, whether it is in a gallery, on city streets, or in the landscape. Like architecture, many of these temporary artworks aspire to alter viewers' experience of the environment. An installation is usually the end product for an artist, but for architects it can also be a preliminary step in an ongoing design process. Like paper projects designed in the absence of "real" architecture, installations offer architects another way to engage in issues critical to their practice. Direct experimentation with architecture's material and social dimensions engages the public around issues in the built environment that concern them and expands the ways that architecture can participate in and impact people's everyday lives. The first survey of its kind, Installations by Architects features fifty of the most significant projects from the last twenty-five years by today's most exciting architects, including Anderson Anderson, Philip Beesley, Diller + Scofidio, John Hejduk, Dan Hoffman, and Kuth/Ranieri Architects. Projects are grouped in critical areas of discussion under the themes of tectonics, body, nature, memory, and public space. Each project is supplemented by interviews with the project architects and the discussions of critics and theorists situated within a larger intellectual context. There is no doubt that installations will continue to play a critical role in the practice of architecture. Installations by Architects aims to contribute to the role of installations in sharpening our understanding of the built environment.

Download or read book Let It Bleed written by Pamela Des Barres and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-04-18 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Author of the international bestseller I'm with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie, Pamela Des Barres shares with women the art of memoir writing. For the last fourteen years, Pamela Des Barres has been teaching an eight-week women's "femoir" writing workshop. She found that the music-loving ladies who showed up at her door had pent-up stories to tell. Many of them had read her two memoirs, which were wildly personal and deeply confessional, and felt comfortable opening up and experiencing that same freedom of expression. In this book, Des Barres guides women through the process of writing their memoirs. She has developed exercises to help her "dolls" recall, remember, relive, and reveal their memories, transgressions, temptations, their sleepless nights and brilliant afternoons, loves and losses, fears and regrets, secrets, sins, and sorrows. The assignments in Femoir have proven incredibly cathartic for her students. Just as intimate as one of her in-person workshops, this book includes some of Des Barres's own stories, as well as those of the women she's taught. Every person has an incredible story to tell—they just need to figure out how to tell it. By understanding themselves better through these writing exercises, women learn to be more fearless, free-spirited, and willing to try something new.

Download or read book Zen Odyssey written by Janica Anderson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-01-19 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explore two lives—and a relationship—that profoundly shaped American Zen. Ruth Fuller Sasaki and Sokei-an Shigetsu Sasaki: two pioneers of Zen in the West. Ruth was an American with a privileged life, even during the height of the Great Depression, before she went to Japan and met D. T. Suzuki. Sokei-an was one of the first Zen priests to come to America; he brought the gift of the Dharma to the United States but in 1942 was put in an internment camp. One made his way to the West and the other would find her way to the East, but together they created the First Zen Institute of America and helped birth a new generation of Zen practitioners: among them, Alan Watts, Gary Snyder, and Burton Watson. They were married less than a year before Sokei-an died, but Ruth would go on to helm trailblazing translations in his honor and to become the first foreigner to be the priest of a Rinzai Zen temple in Japan. With lyrical prose, authors Steven Schwartz and Janica Anderson bring Ruth and Sokei-an to life. Two dozen intimate photographs photos show us two people who aren’t mere historical figures, but flesh and blood people, walking their paths.

Download or read book Big Sky Mind written by Carole Tonkinson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1995-09-01 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays, poems, photographs, and letters explore the link between Buddhism and the Beats--with previously unpublished material from several beat writers, including Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder, and Diane diPrima.

Download or read book Mystics and Zen Masters written by Thomas Merton and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 1999-11-29 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thomas Merton was recognized as one of those rare Western minds that are entirely at home with the Zen experience. In this collection, he discusses diverse religious concepts-early monasticism, Russian Orthodox spirituality, the Shakers, and Zen Buddhism-with characteristic Western directness. Merton not only studied these religions from the outside but grasped them by empathy and living participation from within. "All these studies," wrote Merton, "are united by one central concern: to understand various ways in which men of different traditions have conceived the meaning and method of the 'way' which leads to the highest levels of religious or of metaphysical awareness."