For many of us, the return of Zen conjures up images of rock gardens and gently flowing waterfalls. We think of mindfulness and meditation, immersion in a state of being where meaning is found through simplicity. Zen lore has been absorbed by Western practitioners and pop culture alike, yet there is a specific area of this ancient tradition that hasn't been fully explored in the West. Now, in "The" "Zen of Creativity, " American Zen master John Daido Loori presents a book that taps the principles of the Zen arts and aesthetic as a means to unlock creativity and find freedom in the various dimensions of our existence. Loori dissolves the barriers between art and spirituality, opening up the possibility of meeting life with spontaneity, grace, and peace.
Zen Buddhism is steeped in the arts. In spiritual ways, calligraphy, poetry, painting, the tea ceremony, and flower arranging can point us toward our essential, boundless nature. Brilliantly interpreting the teachings of the artless arts, Loori illuminates various elements that awaken our creativity, among them "still point," the center of each moment that focuses on the tranquility within; "simplicity," in which the creative process is uncluttered and unlimited, like a cloudless sky; "spontaneity," a way to navigate through life without preconceptions, with a freshness in which everything becomes new;" mystery, "a sense of trust in the unknown;" creative feedback, " the systematic use of an audience to receive noncritical input about our art;" art koans, " exercises based on paradoxical questions that can be resolved only through artistic expression. Loori shows how these elements interpenetrate and function not only in art, but in all our endeavors.
Beautifully illustrated and punctuated with poems and reflections from Loori's own spiritual journey, "The" "Zen of Creativity" presents a multilayered, bottomless source of insight into our creativity. Appealing equally to spiritual seekers, artists, and veteran Buddhist practitioners, this book is perfect for those wishing to discover new means of self-awareness and expression--and to restore equanimity and freedom amid the vicissitudes of our lives.

"From the Hardcover edition."

Intriguing encounters between Zen practitioners and samurai warriors are recaptured in this breviloquent collection of short stories drawn from the literature of feudal Japan. These encounters deal with the nature of immediacy and its role in understanding the essence of human existence. For the martial artist faced with a conflict, the Zen state of mind, without distractions and illusions, can determine the difference between life and death. The warrior experience, as revealed in these traditional stories, is retold in a style that is relevant and graspable to the contemporary American martial artist. No particular religious background is required to appreciate these stories, but rather a curiosity about what allows people to achieve extraordinary performance when faced with life and death circumstances. Zen ink paintings by John Hrabushi offer a meditative and intellectual "cross training" throughout the collection. Foreword by noted Aikido Shihan Lorraine DiAnne.

Enlightenment is within reach -- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

If you're searching for revelation and contentment, look no further than a handshake, a cup of coffee -- even your laundry pile. The most mundane details of life contain zen's profound truths, if you're of the mind to look for them.

By awakening to and embracing the zen in your life, you'll listen, watch, eat, work, laugh, sleep, and breathe your way to truth -- every moment of every day.

In this text from a lecture originally given in 1981, Norbu Rinpoche discusses the relationship between Zen Buddhism and the various forms of Buddhism that developed in Tibet. Both are direct, non-gradual approaches to Buddhist teaching that continue to be practiced in the West. "The principle of the Dzog-chen teaching is the self-perfectedness, the already-being-perfect of every individual. Self-perfectedness means that the so-called objective is nothing else than the manifestation of the energy of the primordial state of the individual himself. An individual who practices Dzog-chen must possess clear knowledge of the principle of energy and what it means." Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche is a Tibetan lama, who from 1964 to 1994, taught at the University of Naples, Italy. He has done extensive research into the historical origins of Tibetan culture and has conducted teaching retreats throughout Europe, the United States, and South America, giving instruction in Dzog-chen practices in a non-sectarian format.

We are, each man and woman, as a unique, glistening leaf. We spring from, we are the Tree which is this World. The Tree is wild, ever changing, the source of all that is. In life's twists and turns. rarely does it go, grow just as we might wish.

Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki's "The Training of the Zen Buddhist Monk" invites you to step inside the mysterious world of the Zendo, where monks live their lives in simplicity. Suzuki, best known as the man who brought Zen classics to the West, sheds light on all phases of a monk's experience, from being refused admittance at the door to finally understanding the meaning of one's "koan." Suzuki explains the initiation ceremony, the act of begging, and the life of prayers, meditation, and service.

This little work is a collection of some of the lectures delivered by the Right Reverend Soyen Shaku during his sojourn in Japan. He lectured on the Sutra of Forty-two Chapters, and naturally chose the texts for his sermons from this most popular among the canonical books. Partial Contents: Sutra of forty-two chapters; God conception; assertions and denials; immortality; Buddhist faith and ethics; What is Buddhism? middle way; wheel of the good law; reply to a Christian critic; ignorance and enlightenment; practice of Dhyana; Buddhism and oriental culture; sacrifice for a stanza; Buddhist view of war.

"The Way of the Living Sword" is the final installment in D.E. Tarver's popular "Warrior Series," It stands beside "The Book of Five Rings" by Miyamoto Musashi as one of the greatest writings of the warrior mind.

In "The Way of the Living Sword," Munenori gives an in-depth explanation of the connection between physical martial arts and the mental process of Zen. While Munenori and Musashi were both avid students of Zen, Munenori was more fascinated by the academic aspects of the philosophy.

Munenori stretches the consciousness of even the most enlightened martial artist. Martial arts devotees will experience many flashes of revelation as Tarver explores the various aspects of Munenori's approach.

Read and grow!

Under its unique abbot Kosho Uchiyama, the small Zen temple of Antaji in Kyoto becamne a magnet for serious non-Japanese practitioners, and played a crucial role in the transmission of Zen to America in particular. This book combines the life stories and teaching of five teachers - Sawaki Kodo, Yokoyama Sodo, Kato Kosho, Ikebe Motoko and Uchiyama - associated with Antaiji and the story of the author and other western students coming to grips with Zen, Japanese culture and themselves. The deification of Zen teachers by their followers has been a serious problem in American Zen; this book provides a healthy antidote, presenting four men and one woman who have lived and died in Zazen within the rich context of their personal lives and their culture, so that we can fully understand what makes a Zen master in Japan.

"Shoes Outside the Door is a not only a fine history of the San Francisco Zen Center and Zen in the United States, it is a cautionary tale, valuable to anyone embarked on a spiritual practice." --San Jose Mercury News. Eastern tradition collides with Western individualism in this provocative and compulsively readable investigation of Buddhism, American-style. A genuine spiritual movement becomes strangely entangled with elitist aesthetics, the culture of celebrity, multi-million-dollar investment portfolios, sex scandals, and an unsolved crime.Told Rashomon-fashion by a singular mix of hippies, millionaires, intellectuals, and lost souls whose lives are almost unbelievably intertwined, Shoes Outside the Door is the first book to examine the inner workings of the profoundly influential San Francisco Zen Center. In exploring the history of the most important institution in American Buddhism, author Michael Downing provocatively captures the profound ambivalence of people who earnestly seek both inner peace and worldly satisfaction.

A translation of the classic "Denkoroku" by one of the premier translators of Buddhist and Taoist texts illustrates how to arrive at the epiphanic Zen awakening known as "satori." The essential initiatory experience of Zen, satori is believed to open up the direct perception of things as they are. "Even if you sit until your seat breaks through, even if you persevere mindless of fatigue, even if you are a person of lofty deeds and pure behavior, if you haven't reached this realm of satori, you still can't get out of the prison of the world." Deliberately cultivated and employed to awaken the dormant potency of the mind, satori is said to be accessible to all people, transcending time, history, culture, race, gender, and personality. Attributed to the thirteenth-century Zen Master Keizan (1268-1325), "Transmission of Light" (along with "The Blue Cliff Record" and "The Gateless Barrier ")" "is one of three essential koan texts used by Zen students. Techniques for reaching the enlightening experience of satori are revealed through fifty-three short tales about the awakenings of successive generations of masters, beginning with the twelfth-century Zen master Ejo, dharma heir to Dogen. The translator's introduction establishes the context for "Transmission of Light" within the Zen canon and elucidates central themes of the work, including the essential idea that genuine satori "is not the end of Zen; it is more properly the true beginning."

Of the many eccentric figures in Japanese Zen, the Soto Zen master Tosui Unkei is surely among the most colourful and extreme. Variously compared to Ryokan and Francis of Assisi, Tosui has been called ""the original hippie."" After many grueling years of Zen study and the sanction of a distinguished teacher, Tosui abandoned the religious establishment and became a drifter. The arresting details of Tosui's life were recorded in the ""Tribute"" (""Tosui osho densan""), a lively and colloquial account written by the celebrated scholar and Soto Zen master Menzan Zuiho. Menzan concentrates on Tosui's years as a beggar and labourer, recounting episodes from an unorthodox life while at the same time opening a new window on 17th-century Japan. The ""Tribute""is translated here for the first time, accompanied by woodblock prints commissioned for the original 1768 edition. Peter Haskel's introduction places Tosui in the context of the Japanese Zen of his period - a time when the identities of early modern Zen schools were still being formed and a period of spiritual crisis for many distinguished monks who believed that the authentic Zen transmission had long ceased to exist. A biographical addendum offers a detailed overview of Tosui's life in light of surviving premodern sources.

Zen experience defies all thinking and linguistic description and simply affirms what is evidently real: "The ordinary way--that precisely "is" the Way." After questioning the nature of reality, the Zen student discovers that what remains is what "is." Although it seems that Zen would not lend itself to philosophical discussion, that all conceptualization would dissolve in light of this empiricism, in this volume, the author demonstrates that the "silence" of Zen is in fact pregnant with words.
A variety of topics are discussed: the experience of satori, ego and egolessness, Zen sense and nonsense, koan practice, the influence of Zen on Japanese painting and calligraphy and much more.

"Zen Letters " presents the teachings of the great Chinese master Yuanwu (1063-1135) in direct person-to-person lessons, intimately revealing the inner workings of the psychology of enlightenment. These teachings are drawn from letters written by Yuanwu to various fellow teachers, disciples, and lay students--to women as well as men, to people with families and worldly careers as well as monks and nuns, to advanced adepts as well as beginning students. A key figure of Zen history, Yuanwu is best known as the author of "The Blue Cliff Record. " His letters, here in English for the first time, are among the treasures of Zen literature.

This important book brings together three long-lost texts, the earliest known writings on Zen.
- "Records of the Teachers and Students of the Lanka " presents a complete set of biographies of the Zen patriarchs.
- "Bodhidharma's Treatise on Contemplating Mind-- "written in the form of a dialogue between the first Zen patriarch, Bodhidharma, and his successor, Huke--views all the various practices of the Bodhisattva path from the perspective of cultivating mind.
- "Treatise on Sudden Enlightenment "presents a series of questions and answers illuminating the true nature of "sudden enlightenment" as pure, undifferentiated mind.

Dating from the first half of the eighth century, and only recently rediscovered in Tun Huang, China, these books offer the best information currently available on the early meditation techniques of the "northern school" of Zen Buddhism.

"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.

Koans are at the very heart of Zen practice; this collection of informal koan talks will bring the Zen student into the presence of Roshi Philip Kapleau, the famous author of "The Three Pillars of Zen ." The talks in this collection came directly from the "zendo" (training hall) and from the intense form of practice known as "sesshin," a Japanese word meaning "to train the mind." These are direct presentations of the practice and understanding of one of the century's greatest American masters.
These Zen talks focus on koans that illuminate fundamental issues of the spiritual life. While koans may be said to be uniquely Zen, in Roshi Kapleau's talks they become as familiar, everyday, and relevant as the questions we ponder--in one form or another--all our lives. Why was I born? Why must I die? How can I find an end to suffering?
The book has three main sections. As Zen begins with the Buddha's life and enlightenment, the three "teishos "(talks) in Part One are each drawn from an incident in the life of the Buddha. Since Zen in the West is a lay movement, not a monastic one as it is in Japan, Part Two presents koans and commentary drawn from the lives of three great lay figures in Zen. Part Three contains five teishos on traditional koans that reflect fundamental concerns common to all of us, man or woman, monastic or lay, Buddhist or otherwise: What is the road to enlightenment? What will happen to me when I die?

Tofu Roshi--the fictional "Dear Abby" of Zen Buddhism--counsels his readers about their spiritual problems in this hilarious spoof of America's search for enlightenment. Selections from his advice column alternate with commentary from narrator and disciple Ichi Su.

This Zen classic is a collection of talks by the great Japanese Zen Master Dogen, the founder of the Soto School. They were recorded by Ejo, one of Dogen's first disciples, and later his foremost successor. The talks and stories in this volume were written in the thirteenth-century Japan, a time when Buddhism was undergoing a "dark age" of misinterpretation and corruption. It was in this atmosphere that Dogen attempted to reassert the true essence of the Buddhist teachings and to affirm "the mind of the Way" and the doctrine of selflessness. Dogen emphasizes the disciplinary aspect of Zen: meditation practice is presented here as the backbone without which Buddhism could not exist. The stories in this volume are often humorous and paradoxical, relating the Buddhist teachings by means of example. Commonly in the Zen tradition, discussions between teacher and student and the telling of tales are used to point to a greater truth, which mere theory could never explain. Dogen relates interesting stories of his travels in China, where the inspiration he found lacking in Japanese Buddhism was flourishing in the Ch'an school of Chinese Buddhism.

Zen has often been portrayed as being illogical and mystifying, even aimed at the destruction of the rational intellect. These new translations of the thirteenth-century Zen master Dogen--one of most original and important Zen writers--illustrate the rational side of Zen, which has been obscured through the centuries, tainting people's understanding of it.
"Rational Zen " consists of enlightening selections from Dogen's two masterworks, "Treasury of Eyes of True Teaching" (the famed "Shobogenzo," Japan's most sophisticated philosophical work) and "Universal Book of Eternal Peace," which until now has been unavailable in English. The translator also provides explanations of the inner meanings of Dogen's writings and sayings--the first commentaries of their kind of English. A compendium of authentic source materials further enhances the reader's insight into Dogen's methods, linking them to the great classical traditions of Buddhism that ultimately flowered in Zen.

Stories, parables, and examples have been a favoured way of conveying spiritual insights and truths since time immemorial, and Trevor Leggett was a master at it. He had the knack of pointing out the spiritual implications of practical events which everyone can relate to. This volume contains stories based on Buddhism and referring to martial arts, music, chess and incidents in ordinary life. He describes this as a freewheeling book: I am trying to give a few hints which have helped me and which can be of help to others,' he said. For those who know nothing of Buddhism or Zen in particular, this is an ideal introduction, but is nevertheless relevant to long-term practitioners. As the author points out, occasionally a new slant, a new angle or a new illustration - especially if it is an unexpected one - can be a help in absorbing practice, study and devotion. Trevor Leggett (1914-2000) lived for a considerable time in Japan. He was the first foreigner to obtain the Sixth Dan (senior teachers degree) in judo from Kodokan and has written several well-known books on the subject. He has also written extensively on Zen, including A First Zen Reader, The Warrior Koans, Zen and the Ways, Yoga and Zen, Fingers and Moons, and this final work The Old Zen Master.

For more than seven centuries the "Mumonkan" has been used in Zen monasteries to train monks and to encourage the religious development of lay Buddhists. It contains forty- eight "koans," or spiritual riddles, that must be explored during the course of Zen training. Shibayama Zenkei ""(1894-1974), an influential Japanese Zen teacher and calligrapher who traveled and lectured throughout the United States in the 60s and 70s, offers his own commentary alongside the classic text. "The Gateless Barrier " remains an essential text for all serious students of Buddhism.