2021/04/02

Can someone recommend a few good zen books

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Books

By Bruno Biondo on Saturday, 4 April 2020 at 20:58

           

This thread below is transferred from our old Discussion tab, which we can't have in this new format any more. Please feel free to add your suggestions.


Can someone recommend a few good zen books

Like ·  · Follow Post · April 18, 2011 at 8:15am 

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The Practice of Zen  by Garma C. C. Chang: http://terebess.hu/zen/PracticeZen.pdf

    • Lee Gee- I enjoy Red Pine's translations of Bodhidharma. The Three Pillars of Zen is also very interesting, for it's transcriptions of students' experiences, insights into history, and honest humanity.


    • Forest Bash- I find these books to be very engaging and inspiring. Each Moment is the Universe - Katagiri, Not Always So - Suzuki, Teachings of the Earth - Daido Loori.


    • Mt Klein- ‎'Zen Mind, Beginners Mind' by Suzuki Roshi


    • Marc B Paine- ‎"Empty Cloud: The Chan Teachings of Master Hsu Yun" available online viewing: http://zbohy.zatma.org/Dharma/zbohy/Literature/xybook/xybook-home.html


    • Marc B Paine- Master Hsu Yun is very straightforward, down-to-earth and good for people like myself who think zen authors tend to be unnecessarily obtuse.


    • Carlo JaMelle- And D.T. Suzuki's classic "An Introduction to Zen" never disappoints. That along with John C.H. Wu's also classic "The Golden Age of Zen."


    • Sike Lazarevic Allan Watts - The Winsdom of Insecurtiy, and "What is Zen" from the same author...

      .

      • David Rogers- So many good books available, I'd agree that the right one may just find its way to you. However, I always recommend "Unencumbered Spirit" by Hung Ying-Ming.


      • 大寂真 ‎- "Three Pillars of Zen" by Kapleau http://is.gd/Nit9Eg

         and "Zen Training" by Sekida http://is.gd/QMKNG9


      • Dhyan Jager - A good book is : "Not always so, practicing the true spirit of zen" Shunryu Suzuki


      • David Flynn - The compass of Zen by Master Seung Sahn Sunim


      • Daniel D. Woo - So if you decide to start with Shunryu Suzuki, I suggest "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind." Later, if you are interested, Dogen's Shōbōgenzō is wonderful. I have a 3 volume translation; there are many translations.

      • .                                                                                         

      Another list of recommendations: http://www.austinzencenter.org/teachings/recommendedreadings.html.

      Recommended Readings | Austin Zen Center

      www.austinzencenter.org

    • ....                                                                                           ....

    One more list: http://www.vistazencenter.com/recommended-reading.

    Recommended Reading | Vista Zen Center

    www.vistazencenter.com

  • (this last one has the books devided in sections for beginners, intermediate and advanced)

  • ..http://poetrychina.net/Story_of_Zen/zenstory1.htm
  • I can also recommend Charles Luk (Lu K'uan Yù) "Ch'an and Zen teaching" - Rider & Co. London. It's quite the only text that focuses spefically on Ch'an.
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  • Hillary Hart "Teachings on love" by Thich Nhat Hanh.
    His words are gentle & easy to comprehend :) for me
    2
  • Mike Henderson .
    "What the Buddha Taught" -- Walpula Rahula
    http://www.ddbc.edu.tw/.../down.../download_document.html...

    "Mindfulness in Plain English" -- Henepola Gunaratana
    http://www.mindfulvalley.org/.../mindfulness_plain...
    4
  • Matt Bledsoe "The Compass of Zen": by Zen Master Seung Sahn. If I had to give away all books in my library it would be the last to go. Or maybe the first for the right person. A must have in my opinion.
    2
  • Ana Anna For people from Croatia, B&H, Serbia, Crna Gora, a book by Vladimir Devide - Zen, the best one in my experience. Not easy to understand for the beginners though, some background is required.
    4
  • Melissa Pilar Rikki, you might find something in this list. ♡
  • Harry Walker Hooker "For the the Time Being" by Ruth Ozeki, an amazing novel named for Chapter 11 of Dogen's "Shobogenzo". I couldn't put it down.
    1
  • Jonn Kmech I'll separate mine into "beginner" and "not beginner" (meaning, not one as an introduction, but for someone who's practiced a while).

    Beginner: Hardcore Zen, Opening the Hand of Thought, The Compass of Zen, Sit Down and Shut Up, The Three Pillars of Zen,

    Not Beginner: To Meet The Real Dragon, The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma, The Zen Teaching of Huang Po, The Zen Teaching of Hui Hai, The Gateless Gate + Blue Cliff Record (Sekida translation), Shobogenzo (Nishijima/Cross translation), The Essential Dogen, The Heart Sutra, The Platform Sutra, Buddha is the Centre of Gravity (if you can find it), A Flower Does Not Talk, The Zen Teaching of Rinzai, The Undying Lamp of Zen, Hakuin on Kensho, The Path to Bodhidharma, Why the World Doesn't Seem to Make Sense
    1
  • Ana Anna I haven't read half of them. At the beginning of practice I read a lot, asked, talked and discussed even more. Now I feel the need to put the emphasize on practice, reading less and discussing almost none. And when it comes to reading I find the poetry suits me most, especially Ikkyu, Ryokan, Hanshan, Li Po.... and most of all Sengcan's Xinxin Ming.
    3
  • Rikki Peters Going to start with Zen mind beginners mind , and intro to zen... Don't want to get away from myself. Great having all this information
    2
  • Matt Bledsoe Anything you can find from Charlotte Joko Beck is going to be good. For the beginner or not.
  • Jani Parisaari The Complete Book of Zen by Wong Kiew Kit
    1
  • Bob Hermer For beginners, I like to recommend practice oriented books, particularly anthologies: On Zen Training by Maezumi and Glassman, or one of John Daido Loori's collections: The Art of Just Sitting or Sitting With Koans. Also, despite being somewhat imbalan…See more
    2
  • Brian Ramsay-Whitmarsh This and the Dhammapada.
    No photo description available.
    3
  • Arjuna Ranatunga "The Little Zen Companion" by David Schiller, and "A Thousand Paths to Enlightenment" by David Baird. Both full of short, pithy aphorisms & quotes. Concise, memorable & hard to put down. You can dip in anywhere.
    1
  • Bob Hermer A couple of add-ons: I like Ana Anna's suggestion about zen poetry. These works, while not really understandable for beginners, create a feeling for the great mystery, and are both sparse and beautiful. In a similar vein, you might look at Norman Waddell's dazzling translation of Baisao, the Old Tea Seller. And if you want a kind of overview of Zen history, I'd suggest Andy Ferguson's Zen's Chinese Heritage, Heinrich Doumoulin's History of Zen (dated but very good), or the Cleary brothers' Transmission of the Lamp. But practice, always practice....
    3
  • What Book!?
    BOOKS.GOOGLE.CO.IN
    What Book!?
    What Book!?
    2
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  • Ana Anna welcome :)
    1
  • Nemanja S. Manojlovic A series of lectures by Sapolski on Human Behavioral Biology that is immensely enlightening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNnIGh9g6fA...
    Number 22. is fairly insightful.
    He suggests several books:
    1. Chaos: Making a New Science https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64582.Chaos
    2. A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram https://www.wolframscience.com/nks/

    The second one is lengthy and complex (haven't read a fifth of it yet), but it deals with incredibly important ideas -- underlined is the notion that immense complexity can emerge from simple elements and a banal beginning state by just following a few simple pre-programmed rules. There is lots to be gleamed about human nature, our perception and behavior, as well as the nature of the world around us and our own sense of self. The intertwined nature of randomness and rules, complex behaviors and pre-determined scripts, it really makes you think.
    1. Introduction to Human Behavioral Biology
    YOUTUBE.COM
    1. Introduction to Human Behavioral Biology
    1. Introduction to Human Behavioral Biology
    1
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