A Zen story speaks of not mistaking a finger that points to the Moon for the Moon itself--a topic explored in photos, words, and paintings by the author. 50 photos, 30 in color. Line drawings.
In Finger Pointing to the Moon: Talks on the Adhyatma Upanishad Osho draws on the ancient wisdom of this Upanishad to reflect on God, religion and the liberation of the self. Religion for him is not worship, devotion and prayer, but mumuksha, the deep longing for freedom from the fetters of everyday life that can lead a seeker on the path to enlightenment. When one reaches this state of kaivalya, the abode of truth and eternal bliss beyond mind and speech, one becomes unified with the God within oneself. Then one achieves true knowledge and true mastery over the self. These seventeen talks that Osho delivered at Mount Abu, Rajasthan, make this book a truly enriching guide for those seeking to look within and find answers to the enigmas of human existence.
This unique and intensely personal memoir is about spirituality, not about religion,and it is alive with the raw energy of a journal and polisjed with the skill of the master storyteller.
The well-known Zen Buddhist phrase 'the finger pointing at the moon' refers to the means and the end, and the possibility of mistaking one for the other. Trevor Leggett says, 'the forms are the methods and they are very important as pointing fingers, but if we forget what they are for and they become, so to speak, the goal in their own right, then our progress is liable to stop. And if it stops, it retrogresses.' On the other hand there are those who say 'with considerable pride, "I don't want fingers or methods. I want to see the moon directly, directly . . . to see the moon directly . . . no methods or pointing." But in fact they don't see it! It's easy to say.'With many varied analogies, stories and incidents, Trevor Leggett points to the truth behind words, behind explanations and methods. Indeed, the book itself is like 'a finger pointing at the moon'.
A practical synthesis of AA’s Twelve Steps and Zen’s Eightfold Path. In this compelling blend of East and West, Mel Ash shows how Zen mind and practice connect to the heart of recovery. Courageously drawing from his lifetime of experience as an abused child, alcoholic, Zen student, and dharma teacher, Ash presents a practical synthesis of Alcoholics Anonymous’s Twelve Steps and Zen’s Eightfold Path. You don’t have to be Buddhist to appreciate the healing power of The Zen of Recovery. The book makes Zen available to all seeking to improve the quality of their spiritual and everyday lives. It also includes practical instructions on how to meditate and put the book into action. Its message will help readers live more profoundly “one day at a time.”
The no-mind... Mind continuously changes: a child’s mind is one thing, a young man’s mind is another thing, a mature middle-aged mind is another thing, the mind of an old man is another thing. The mind is constantly accumulating, changing viewpoints, ideologies, religions. It is not very trustworthy, it cannot be relied upon. Today it may be a communist and tomorrow may turn against communism; today it may be atheist, tomorrow it may become a theist. Mind is just hot air, as polluted as Poona.
The Letters of Chan Master Dahui Pujue offers a complete annotated translation, the first into English, of a Chan Buddhist classic, the collected letters of the Southern Song Linji Chan teacher Dahui Zonggao (1089-1163). Addressed to forty scholar-officials, members of the elite class in Chinese society, and to two Chan masters, these letters are dharma talks on how to engage in Buddhist cultivation. Each of the letters to laymen is fascinating as a document directed to a specific scholar-official with his distinctive niche, high or low, in the Song-dynasty social-political landscape, and his idiosyncratic stage of development on the Buddhist path. Dahui is engaging, incisive, and often quite humorous in presenting his teaching of "constantly lifting to awareness the phrase (huatou)," his favored phrases being No (wu) and dried turd. Throughout one's busy twenty-four hours, the practitioner is not to perform any mental operation whatsoever on this phrase, and to "take awakening as the standard." This epistolary compilation has long constituted a self-contained course of study for Chan practitioners. For centuries, Letters of Dahui has been revered throughout East Asia. It has exerted a formative influence on Linji Chan practice in China, molded S