Today’s Recommendation: Zen Practice in Everyday Life

Returning to Silence:
Zen Practice in Everyday Life
by Dainin Katagiri
★★★★ 1/2

For twenty-five hundred years Buddhism has taught that everyone is Buddha—already enlightened, lacking nothing. But still there is the question of how we can experience that truth in our lives. In this book, Dainin Katagiri points to the manifestation of enlightenment right here, right now, in our everyday routine. Genuineness of practice lies in "just living" our lives wholeheartedly. The Zen practice of sitting meditation (zazen) is this not a means to an end but is the activity of enlightenment itself. That is why Katagiri Roshi says, "Don't expect enlightenment—just sit down!"

Based on the author's talks to his American students, Returning to Silence contains the basic teachings of the Buddha, with special emphasis on the meaning of faith and on meditation. It also offers a commentary on "The Bodhisattva's Four Methods of Guidance" from Dogen Zenji's Shobogenzo, which speaks in depth about the appropriate actions of those who guide others in the practice of the Buddha Way. Throughout these pages, Katagiri Roshi energetically brings to life the message that "Buddha is your daily life."

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Today’s Recommendation: Vivid Awareness

Vivid Awareness:
The Mind Instructions of Khenpo Gangshar
by Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche
★★★★★

In the summer of 1957, the revered Buddhist teacher and scholar Khenpo Gangshar foresaw the difficulties that would soon fall upon Tibet and began teaching in a startling new way that enabled all those who heard him to use the coming difficulties as the path of Dharma practice. The teaching consisted of the essential points of mahamudra and dzogchen, both view and practice, presented in a way that made them easy for anyone to use, even in the most difficult of circumstances.

Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche was one of the grateful recipients of these teachings, which he regards as among the most important he has ever been given. He transmits them here, for the benefit of all of us who strive to practice in challenging times. They include contemplations on the ephemeral nature of both joy and suffering, meditations for resting the mind, and guidance for cultivating equanimity in any situation.

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Today’s Recommendation: Developing a Buddha Brain

Just One Thing:
Developing a Buddha Brain
One Simple Practice at a Time
by Rick Hanson
★★★★ 1/2

You've heard the expression, “It’s the little things that count.” It's more than a simple platitude. Research has shown that integrating little daily practices into your life can actually change the way your brain works.

This guide offers simple things you can do routinely, mainly inside your mind, that will support and increase your sense of security and worth, resilience, effectiveness, well-being, insight, and inner peace. For example, they include: taking in the good, protecting your brain, feeling safer, relaxing anxiety about imperfection, not knowing, enjoying your hands, taking refuge, and filling the hole in your heart. At first glance, you may be tempted to underestimate the power of these seemingly simple practices. But they will gradually change your brain through what’s called experience-dependent neuroplasticity.

Moment to moment, whatever you're aware of—sounds, sensations, thoughts, or your most heartfelt longings—is based on underlying neural activities. This book offers simple brain training practices you can do every day to protect against stress, lift your mood, and find greater emotional resilience.

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Today’s Recommendation: The Path of Insight Meditation

Seeking the Heart of Wisdom:
The Path of Insight Meditation
by Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield
★★★★ 1/2

In Seeking the Heart of Wisdom Goldstein and Kornfield present the central teachings and practices of insight meditation in a clear and personal language. The path of insight meditation is a journey of understanding our bodies, our minds, and our lives, of seeing clearly the true nature of experience. The authors guide the reader in developing the openness and compassion that are at the heart of this spiritual practice. For those already treading the path, as well as those just starting out, this book will be a welcome companion along the way.

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Today’s Recommendation: Foundations of Zen Buddhist Practice

Opening the Hand of Thought:
Foundations of Zen Buddhist Practice
by Kosho Uchiyama
★★★★ 1/2

For over thirty years, Opening the Hand of Thought has offered an introduction to Zen Buddhism and meditation unmatched in clarity and power. This is the revised edition of Kosho Uchiyama's singularly incisive classic.

This new edition contains even more useful material: new prefaces, an index, and extended endnotes, in addition to a revised glossary. As Jisho Warner writes in her preface, Opening the Hand of Thought "goes directly to the heart of Zen practice... showing how Zen Buddhism can be a deep and life-sustaining activity." She goes on to say, "Uchiyama looks at what a person is, what a self is, how to develop a true self not separate from all things, one that can settle in peace in the midst of life."

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Today’s Recommendation: Practical Zen: Meditation and Beyond

Practical Zen:
Meditation and Beyond
by Julian Daizan Skinner
★★★★★

Zen master Julian Daizan Skinner guides the reader through a sequence of meditation techniques that can safely lead even a complete novice through to advanced levels. Based on his own long experience of the Rinzai Zen tradition, as taught by the great seventeenth-century masters, Hakuin and Bankei, Daizan highlights the key points for success and addresses the pitfalls. Structured around a traditional teaching framework called "The two wings of a bird," Daizan clearly lays-out how these methods build and combine to create a transformative and sustaining practice.

The book contains an extremely useful section describing the experiences of western practitioners who have successfully applied this framework within the pressures of modern life. The final section features key source texts in translation, making the book a complete introduction and guide to Zen meditation. The work of a master, the book speaks at a deep level, with utmost simplicity.

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Today’s Recommendation: From Mindfulness to Insight

From Mindfulness to Insight:
Meditations to Release Your Habitual Thinking
and Activate Your Inherent Wisdom
by Rob Nairn
★★★★★

Building on mindfulness and self-compassion practices, this step-by-step guide to secular insight meditation shows the way to freedom from deeply rooted thought patterns.

Discover joy within yourself and heartfelt connection with others by releasing the habitual thought patterns that cause suffering and alienation. Drawing on Buddhist wisdom as well as the latest research in psychology and neuroscience, this book provides you with the tools needed to recognize the habits of thinking that fuel anger, desire, jealousy, and pride. Building on mindfulness and self-compassion practice, it offers a step-by-step series of guided meditations that create the conditions for liberating insight and wisdom to naturally arise. Thousands of people in the last decade have benefited from practicing the exercises in this book, which were developed and taught as part of the curriculum at the Mindfulness Association, an organization founded to deliver training in mindfulness, compassion, and insight.

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Today’s Recommendation: Zen Perspectives by Barry Magid

What's Wrong with Mindfulness
(And What Isn't):
Zen Perspectives
by Barry Magid
★★★★

Mindfulness seems to be everywhere—but are we sure that's a good thing? Teachers Sallie Jiko Tisdale, Gil Fronsdal, Norman Fischer, and more explain how removing mindfulness from Buddhism may set a dangerous precedent.

Mindfulness is in fashion. Oprah loves it, Google teaches it to employees—it has become widespread as a cure-all for stress, health problems and psychological difficulties, interpersonal trouble, and existential anxiety.

However, when its proponents try to make it more accessible by severing it from its Buddhist roots, they run the risk of leeching mindfulness of its transformative power. Taught outside of its ethical and spiritual context it becomes a mere means to an end, rather than a way of life. Mindfulness is in danger of being co-opted into the spiritual equivalent of fast food: “McMindfulness.” Instead of being better people, we just become better employees, better consumers. The Zen teachers gathered here ask a bold question: Is universal mindfulness really a good thing?

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Today’s Recommendation: Beyond Mindfulness

Beyond Mindfulness in Plain English:
An Introductory Guide to Deeper States of Meditation
by Henepola Gunaratana
★★★★ 1/2

“A straightforward and pragmatic guide to deepening levels of concentration and insight. This book is a joy to read and a great gift to us all.”
— Joseph Goldstein, author of Mindfulness

Countless people worldlwide have made Mindfulness in Plain English a beloved and bestselling classic in almost a dozen languages. Now after nearly two decades, Bhante helps meditators of every stripe take their mindfulness practice to the next level - helping them go, in a word, beyond mindfulness. In the same warm, clear, and friendly voice, Bhante introduces the reader to what have been known for centuries as the "jhanas" - deeply calm, joyous, and powerful states of meditation that, when explored with the clearly presented tools in this book, can lead to a life of insight and unshakeable peace.

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Today’s Recommendation: Meditating in the Stillness of Not-Knowing

The Silent Question:
Meditating in the Stillness of Not-Knowing
by Toni Packer
★★★★★

In The Silent Question, Packer provides fresh insights on using the experiences of life that are raw, messy, painful, and sometimes full of laughter, to open a way to compassion. She urges us to let go of our thoughts and to sit "in the stillness of not knowing" in order to reflect upon the essential question of who we are. Packer encourages us to discover that life, energy, and insight come from the questioning, the looking, the listening.

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Today’s Recommendation: Practical Zen for Meditation and Mindfulness for Health

Practical Zen for Meditation and Mindfulness
for Health, Wellbeing and More
by Julian Daizan Skinner & Sarah Bladen
★★★★ 1/2

Bringing the body-mind insights of Rinzai Zen from the mountains of Japan to the Western world, Zen master Julian Daizan Skinner and Sarah Bladen present simple meditation techniques to help achieve health, wellbeing and success.

Taking the reader through the first 100 days of practice, the book then shows how to adapt the new learned techniques to the rest of your life.

Including case studies at the end of each chapter to show how people's lives have been transformed through their meditation journeys, this is an accessible and practical guide to adapting Eastern meditation into busy Western lives.

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Today’s Recommendation: Right Concentration

Right Concentration:
A Practical Guide to the Jhanas
by Leigh Brasington
★★★★★

A practical guidebook for meditators interested in achieving the states of bliss and deep focus associated with the Buddhist jhānas.

One of the elements of the Eightfold Path is Right Concentration: the one-pointedness of mind that, together with ethics, livelihood, meditation, and more, leads to the ultimate freedom from suffering. So how does one achieve Right Concentration? According to the Buddha himself, the jhānas—a series of eight progressive altered states of consciousness—are an essential method. But because the jhānas can usually be achieved only through prolonged meditation retreat, they have been shrouded in mystery for years.

Not anymore. In Right Concentration, Leigh Brasington takes away the mystique and gives instructions on how to achieve them in plain, accessible language. He notes the various pitfalls to avoid along the way and provides a wealth of material on the theory of jhāna practice—all geared toward the practitioner rather than the scholar. As Brasington proves, these states of bliss and concentration are attainable by anyone who devotes the time and sincerity of practice necessary to realize them.

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Today’s Recommendation: Enlightenment Wherever You Are

Naked in the Zendo:
Stories of Uptight Zen, Wild-Ass Zen, and
Enlightenment Wherever You Are
by Grace Shireson,
forward by Joan Halifax
★★★ 1/2

A collection of charming and funny stories on how to turn the awareness we find on the meditation cushion into wisdom for every day.

We need to remove our ego's clothing to truly see ourselves and the world as they are. Grace Schireson's stories about her Zen journey--from child to grandmother--share deep insight about how we can find awareness, feel it in our bodies, and experience it wherever we are. Grace's path is at times ordinary--with stories of youthful naiveite ("Will Zen Get You High?"), parenting ("You Exist; Therefore, I Am Embarrassed"), and pets ("The Honorable Roshi Bully Cat")--and groundbreaking--with stories of her studies with Suzuki Roshi ("What's Love Got to Do with It?"), Keido Fukushima Roshi ("Don't Bow"), and more. Each story, whether humorous or poignant, highlights the power of awareness to transform our lives and the remarkable work of this pioneering woman in American Zen.

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Today’s Recommendation: Mindfulness in Plain English

Mindfulness in Plain English:
20th Anniversary Edition
by Henepola Gunaratana
★★★★ 1/2

Since Mindfulness in Plain English was first published in 1994, it has become one of the bestselling — and most influential — books in the field of mindfulness. It’s easy to see why.

This expanded edition includes the complete text of its predecessor along with a new chapter on cultivating loving kindness, an especially important topic in today’s world. For anyone who is new to meditation, this is a great resource for learning how to live a more productive and peaceful life.

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Today’s Recommendation: Real Happiness by Sharon Salzberg

Real Happiness
10th Anniversary Edition:
A 28-Day Program to Realize the Power of Meditation
by Sharon Salzberg
★★★★ 1/2

“An inviting gateway to the interior territory of profound well-being and wisdom.”
—Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Wherever You Go, There You Are

From Sharon Salzberg, a pioneer in the field of meditation and world-renowned teacher acclaimed for her down-to-earth style, Real Happiness is a complete guide to starting and maintaining a meditation practice. Beginning with the simplest breathing and sitting techniques, and based on three key skills—concentration, mindfulness, and lovingkindness—it’s a practice anyone can do and that can transform our lives by bringing us greater resiliency, creativity, peace, clarity, and balance.

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Today’s Recommendation: Zen for Meditation and Mindfulness

Practical Zen for Meditation and
Mindfulness for Health, Wellbeing and More
by Julian Daizan Skinner & Sarah Bladen
★★★★ 1/2

Bringing the body-mind insights of Rinzai Zen from the mountains of Japan to the Western world, Zen master Julian Daizan Skinner and Sarah Bladen present simple meditation techniques to help achieve health, wellbeing and success.

Taking the reader through the first 100 days of practice, the book then shows how to adapt the new learned techniques to the rest of your life.

Including case studies at the end of each chapter to show how people's lives have been transformed through their meditation journeys, this is an accessible and practical guide to adapting Eastern meditation into busy Western lives.

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Today’s Recommendation: The Buddha's Guide to Gratitude by Becca Anderson

The Buddha's Guide to Gratitude:
The Life-changing Power of
Every Day Mindfulness
by Becca Anderson
★★★★★

The four keys to the Gate of Heaven: As it turns out, Buddha had quite a lot to say on the subject of gratitude, including citing it as one of the four keys to the Gate of Heaven. Why is this? Perhaps the sheer simplicity of gratefulness is a key, as it is available to all of us at any time. Even in the midst of over-busyness, stress, and chaos, we can find plenty to be glad about, and The Buddha’s Guide to Gratitude will start your journey towards Zen and gratefulness.

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Today’s Recommendation: Being Zen by Ezra Bayda

Being Zen: Bringing Meditation to Life
by Ezra Bayda
forward by Charlotte Joko Beck
★★★★ 1/2

A “straightforward, simple, and wise” guide to living an awakened life through mindfulness and meditation (Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart)

We can use whatever life presents to strengthen our spiritual practice—including the turmoil of daily life. What we need is the willingness to just be with our experiences—whether they are painful or pleasing—and open ourselves to the reality of our lives without trying to fix or change anything. But doing this requires that we confront our most deeply rooted fears and assumptions in order to gradually become free of the constrictions and suffering they create. Then we can awaken to the loving-kindness that is at the heart of our being.

While many books aspire to bring meditation into everyday experience, Ezra Bayda's Being Zen gives us practical ways to actually do it ...

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Today’s Recommendation: Chogyam Trungpa on Meditation

Meditation in Action
by Chogyam Trungpa
★★★★ 1/2

"This classic teaching by a Tibetan master continues to inspire both beginners and long-time practitioners of Buddhist meditation. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche shows that meditation extends beyond the formal practice of sitting to build the foundation for compassion, awareness, and creativity in all aspects of life.

He explores the six activities associated with meditation in action—generosity, discipline, patience, energy, clarity, and wisdom—revealing that through simple, direct experience, one can attain real wisdom: the ability to see clearly into situations and deal with them skillfully, without the self-consciousness connected with ego.”

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Daily Insight: Calmness in Activity is True Calmness

"Calmness of mind does not mean you should stop your activity. Real calmness should be found in activity itself. We say, "It is easy to have calmness in inactivity, it is hard to have calmness in activity, but calmness in activity is true calmness."

— Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind:
Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice

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