The Chan Handbook: The Learner's Guide to Meditation is a must-read reference book on the principles and techniques of Chan Meditation. Chan is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that has been passed down directly from the Buddha through his lineage of Patriarchs to the present. The power of Chan Meditation has been taught to seekers of enlightenment in Asia for thousands of years. In this book, Chan Master YongHua reveals the extraordinary method of Chan Meditation, from basic stretches and sitting postures, to the fundamental principles of Buddhism. As a Buddhist monk who has practiced the rigorous techniques of Chan for 20 years, Master YongHua presents these ancient skills to the West, in an easy-to-follow format. The Chan Handbook is accessible to the casual reader, and yet it also contains practical and concrete instructions that will be of great value to the advanced practitioner. In addition, all people, regardless of their religious affiliation, can achieve personal benefit from Chan Meditation. Thus The Chan Handbook makes an excellent gift for anyone interested in meditation. "Meditation is a powerful technique for restoring your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual balance. Ultimately, meditation will help you unfold your inherent wisdom, enabling you to end suffering and attain enlightenment. And on a more basic level, you will develop greater focus and concentration, which will have an immediate and practical application to your life."

A rare and vivid narrative of a Buddhist nun's training and spiritual awakening. In this engagingly written account, Martine Batchelor relays the challenges a new ordinand faces in adapting to Buddhist monastic life: the spicy food, the rigorous daily schedule, the distinctive clothes and undergarments, and the cultural misunderstandings inevitable between a French woman and her Korean colleagues. She reveals as well the genuine pleasures that derive from solitude, meditative training, and communion with the deeply religious - whom the Buddhists call ""good friends."" Batchelor has also recorded the oral history/autobiography of her teacher, the eminent nun Son'gyong Sunim, leader of the Zen meditation hall at Naewonsa. It is a profoundly moving, often light-hearted story that offers insight into the challenges facing a woman on the path to enlightenment at the beginning of the twentieth century. Original English translations of eleven of Son'gyong Sunim's poems on Buddhist themes make a graceful and thought-provoking coda to the two women's narratives. Western readers only familiar with Buddhist ideas of female inferiority will be surprised by the degree of spiritual equality and authority enjoyed by nuns in Korea. While American writings on Buddhism increasingly emphasize the therapeutic, self-help, and comforting aspects of Buddhist thought, Batchelor's text offers a bracing and timely reminder of the strict discipline required in traditional Buddhism.