Today’s Recommendation: The Heart of the Plum Village Teachings

The Heart of the Plum Village Teachings:
The Forty Tenets of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh
★★★★★

Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh presents the 40 essential aspects of Buddhism in a series of beautiful, profound, and scholarly reflections on the nature of reality.

Beginning with the First Tenet, "Space is not an unconditioned Dharma. It manifests together with time, matter, and consciousness," this book of principles contains the blueprint of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh's renewal of Buddhist teachings. For almost forty years during his exile in France, Thich Nhat Hanh has been the guiding teacher of monasteries of monks and nuns in the Buddhist tradition known as the Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism. During this time of teaching in the West, Thich Nhat Hanh identified, defined, and revised the teachings as a living, evolving body of Dharma. Underpinning their deceptively simple practices of mindful breathing, sitting, and walking lies a vibrant web of interconnected and poetic teachings. These teachings are a complete structure for a wholly modern Buddhism. The Heart of the Plum Village Teachings is a true textbook of refined contemplations on core Buddhist principles.

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Today’s Recommendation: True Dharma Eye Zen Master Dogen

Treasury of the True Dharma Eye:
Zen Master Dogen's Shobo Genzo
by Kazuaki Tanahashi
★★★★ 1/2

Treasury of the True Dharma Eye (Shobo Genzo, in Japanese) is a monumental work, considered to be one of the profoundest expressions of Zen wisdom ever put on paper, and also the most outstanding literary and philosophical work of Japan. It is a collection of essays by Eihei Dogen (1200–1253), founder of Zen’s Soto school.

Kazuaki Tanahashi and a team of translators that represent a Who’s Who of American Zen have produced a translation of the great work that combines accuracy with a deep understanding of Dogen’s voice and literary gifts. This eBook includes a wealth of materials to aid understanding, including maps, lineage charts, a bibliography, and an exhaustive glossary of names and terms—and, as a bonus, the most renowned of all Dogen’s essays, "Recommending Zazen to All People."

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Daily Insight: The Dalai Lama: Practice of the Buddhadharma

“Merely refraining from the ten nonvirtues or cultivating of compassion and loving-kindness alone do not constitute a specific practice of the Buddhadharma; such practices of ethics and compassion are, after all, a feature of many spiritual traditions. When we speak of Buddhadharma in this context, the term Dharma (or spirituality) refers to the peace of nirvana—liberation—and to definite goodness, a term that encompasses both liberation from samsara as well as the full enlightenment of buddhahood.”

― Dalai Lama XIV, The Middle Way:
Faith Grounded in Reason

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Words of Wisdom for Nov. 5, 2019: Three Treasures: Buddha, Dharma, Sangha

“Three Treasures: the Buddha, which refers to the world of oneness; the Dharma, which is the world of form; and the Sangha, or the relationship that says the two are really the same thing. We begin such study the simple way, by seeing the world of oneness, of emptiness.”

― Bernie Glassman,
Infinite Circle:
Teachings in Zen

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Words of Wisdom for Oct. 18, 2019: Ajahn Chah:The Wrong View of Ourselves

“Buddha once saw a jackal, a wild dog, run out of the forest where he was staying. It stood still for a while, then it ran into the underbrush, and then out again. Then it ran into a tree hollow, then out again. Then it went into a cave, only to run out again. One minute it stood, the next it ran, then it lay down, then it jumped up. The jackal had the mange. When it stood, the mange would eat into its skin, so it would run. Running, it was still uncomfortable, so it would stop. Standing, it was still uncomfortable, so it would lie down. Then it would jump up again, running to the underbrush, the tree hollow, never staying still.

The Buddha said, “Monks, did you see that jackal this afternoon? Standing, it suffered. Running, it suffered. Sitting, it suffered. Lying down, it suffered. It blamed standing for its discomfort. It blamed sitting. It blamed running and lying down. It blamed the tree, the underbrush, and the cave. In fact, the problem was with none of those things. The problem was with his mange.”

We are just the same as that jackal. Our discontent is due to wrong view. Because we don’t exercise sense restraint, we blame our suffering on externals. Whether we live in Thailand, America or England, we aren’t satisfied. Why not? Because we still have wrong view. Just that!

So wherever we go, we aren’t content. But just as that jackal would be content wherever it went as soon as its mange was cured, so would we be content wherever we went once we rid ourselves of wrong view.”

― Ajahn Chah,
Being Dharma:
The Essence of the Buddha's Teachings

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