Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki

My Rating: ★★★★★

 

 

 

If and when you meet The Buddha,
Kill him.
Then come back
And sit.
Sit
In Zazen.
Be.
Enlightenment is there,
Before it arrives.

 

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A Drifting Boat: Chinese Zen Poetry

A Drifting Boat: Chinese Zen Poetry by Dennis Maloney

My Rating: ★★★★☆

All the poems are so well translated and seems to keep true to their original innocence and wonder. Each piece in this collection should be repeated multiple times to feel its true resonance – like the humming and the mumbling that these poets talk of when they talk of chanting poetry.

The gibbons chattering, the moonlight flowing over you, the soft wind caressing, the lofty mountains for friends, the white clouds playful all around and the other minute yet infinite details of a secluded life take special meaning in each repetitive but strangely innovative verse.

And of course, the boats keep drifting, empty, alone; filled only with the silver moonlight.

My favorite one:

River. Snow.

A thousand mountains.
Flying birds vanish.
Ten thousand paths.
Human traces erased.
One boat, bamboo hat, bark cape — an old man.
Alone with his hook. Cold river. Snow.

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Book Appreciation: Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel

Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel

My Rating: ★★★★★

Are we all such helpless and inexperienced beginners with not the slightest clue on how to correct our aims or on to draw our bowstrings right?

This supposedly uplifting book has depressed me amidst its poetry and beauty into a realization that I will probably never ‘correct my own stance’ or ‘let the arrow fall at the moment of highest tension’, effortlessly hit any goal or even realize what the real goal is…

Why is there no art in life anymore? Isn’t it all that should exist? Can we please ban money and all its accouterments and live by the High Arts; that might then bring some insipid meaning back to our lives?

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