Edited by Thomas Cleary
www.shambhala.com
From the back cover -
This miniature book presents a thousand years of Zen teaching for the modern reader in a way
that preserves the dynamic flavour of these talks, sayings, and records of heart-to-heart
encounters. From the earliest adepts to the last of the great masters, The Pocket Zen
Reader is a compendium of Zen at its best. This collection is edited by Thomas Cleary, the
translator of over fifty volumes of Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian and Islamic texts.
INTRODUCTION
Zen is traditionally called the School of the Awakened Mind, or the Gate to the Source. The premise of Zen is that our personality, culture and beliefs are not inherent parts of our souls, but "guests" of recondite "host", the Buddha-nature or real self hidden within us. We are not limited, in our essence or mode of being, to what we happen to believe we are, or what we happen to believe the world is, based on the accidental conditions of our birth and upbringing.
This realisation may not seem to have positive significance at first, until it is remembered how much anger, antagonism, and grief arises from the ideas of "them" and "us" based on historically conditioned factors like culture, customs, and habits of thought. Any reasonable person knows these things are not absolute, and yet the force of conditioning creates seemingly insurmountable barriers of communication
By actively awakening a level of consciousness deeper that those occupied by conditioned habits of perception, the realisation of Zen removes the strictures of absolutism and intolerance from the thinking and feeling of the individual. In doing so, Zen realisation also opens the door to impartial compassion and social conscience, not in response to political opportunity, but as a spontaneous expression of intuitive and empathic capabilities.
This book is a collection of quotations from the great Eastern masters of Zen. It has no beginning, middle or end. The masters talk about the practicality of Zenrealisation in many different ways, speaking as they did to different audiences in different times, but all of them are talking about waking up, seeing for yourself, and standing on your own two feet. Start anywhere; eventually you'll come full circle.
Note: You can read these few excerpts on a computer screen but why NOT buy the book! Sitting in a nice, comfy chair with a printed copy is much nicer ...
Page 56 -
The substance of your mind is apart from annihilation and apart from eternity; its essence is neither polluted nor pure. Calm and complete, it is equal in ordinary people and sages, functioning responsively without convention. All realms of experience and all states of being are only manifestations of your own mind - do the moon reflected in the water or images in a mirror have originationb or extinction?
If you actually know this, you are fully equipped. The reason that the sages have manifested a spiritual presence to provide exemplars, and have set forth a wide variety of puzzling sayings, is simply to illustrate the fundamental peace of the body of reality, bringing about a return to the root.
Page 230 -
Most people of the world want others to know when they have done something good, and want others not to know when they have done something bad.
If you refrain from doing something because people would think ill of it, or if you try to do good because others will look upon you as a true Buddhist, these are still worldly feelings.
If you have compassion and are imbued with the spirit of the Way, it is of no consequence to be criticised, even reviled, by the ignorant. But if you lack the spirit of the way you should be wary of being thought of by others as having the Way.
What you think in your own mind to be good, or what people of the world think is good, is not necessarily good.
If people who keep up appearances and are attached to themselves gather together to study, not one of them will emerge with an awakened mind.
You should not be esteemed by others if you have no real inner virtue. People here in Japan esteem others on the basis of outward appearances, without knowing anything about real inner virtue; so students lacking the spirit of the Way are dragged down into bad habits and become subject to temptation.
Page -
Some Links -
Should search for authors mentioned in the text ...
The Dalai Lama says meditation is THE cure for every problem
A Shortcut To Awakening For People In A Hurry
An enlightenment experience in the Zen tradition
A large selection of books on Zen
Wikipedia is a comprehensive site - and searchable!
Find the consciousness you had before you were born
The Dark Zen site is worth a look
Zen stories 2 tell your neighbours