Mystics and Zen Masters

Mystics and Zen Masters PDF Author: Thomas Merton
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1429944005
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
Thomas Merton was recognized as one of those rare Western minds that are entirely at home with the Zen experience. In this collection, he discusses diverse religious concepts-early monasticism, Russian Orthodox spirituality, the Shakers, and Zen Buddhism-with characteristic Western directness. Merton not only studied these religions from the outside but grasped them by empathy and living participation from within. "All these studies," wrote Merton, "are united by one central concern: to understand various ways in which men of different traditions have conceived the meaning and method of the 'way' which leads to the highest levels of religious or of metaphysical awareness."

Mystics, Masters, Saints, and Sages

Mystics, Masters, Saints, and Sages PDF Author: Robert Ullman
Publisher: Conari Press
ISBN: 9781573245074
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Organized chronologically, starting with Buddha and ending with contemporary seekers, this book focuses on the moment of enlightenment in the lives of saints and masters that led to their witnessing divine reality.

Zen and the Birds of Appetite

Zen and the Birds of Appetite PDF Author: Thomas Merton
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
ISBN: 0811219720
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
Merton, one of the rare Western thinkers able to feel at home in the philosophies of the East, made the wisdom of Asia available to Westerners. "Zen enriches no one," Thomas Merton provocatively writes in his opening statement to Zen and the Birds of Appetite—one of the last books to be published before his death in 1968. "There is no body to be found. The birds may come and circle for a while... but they soon go elsewhere. When they are gone, the 'nothing,' the 'no-body' that was there, suddenly appears. That is Zen. It was there all the time but the scavengers missed it, because it was not their kind of prey." This gets at the humor, paradox, and joy that one feels in Merton's discoveries of Zen during the last years of his life, a joy very much present in this collection of essays. Exploring the relationship between Christianity and Zen, especially through his dialogue with the great Zen teacher D.T. Suzuki, the book makes an excellent introduction to a comparative study of these two traditions, as well as giving the reader a strong taste of the mature Merton. Never does one feel him losing his own faith in these pages; rather one feels that faith getting deeply clarified and affirmed. Just as the body of "Zen" cannot be found by the scavengers, so too, Merton suggests, with the eternal truth of Christ.

Ordinary People as Monks and Mystics

Ordinary People as Monks and Mystics PDF Author: Marsha Sinetar
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780809127733
Category : Spiritual life
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
An organizational psychologist looks at the stories of ordinary people who choose a solitary lifestyle to find wholeness and self actualization.

The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton

The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton PDF Author: Thomas Merton
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
ISBN: 9780811205702
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Book Description
"This is quintessential Merton."--The Catholic Review.

Zen Women

Zen Women PDF Author: Grace Schireson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0861719565
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
This landmark presentation at last makes heard the centuries of Zen's female voices. Through exploring the teachings and history of Zen's female ancestors, from the time of the Buddha to ancient and modern female masters in China, Korea, and Japan, Grace Schireson offers us a view of a more balanced Dharma practice, one that is especially applicable to our complex lives, embedded as they are in webs of family relations and responsibilities, and the challenges of love and work. Part I of this book describes female practitioners as they are portrayed in the classic literature of "Patriarchs' Zen"--often as "tea-ladies," bit players in the drama of male students' enlightenments; as "iron maidens," tough-as-nails women always jousting with their male counterparts; or women who themselves become "macho masters," teaching the same Patriarchs' Zen as the men do. Part II of this book presents a different view--a view of how women Zen masters entered Zen practice and how they embodied and taught Zen uniquely as women. This section examines many urgent and illuminating questions about our Zen grandmothers: How did it affect them to be taught by men? What did they feel as they trying to fit into this male practice environment, and how did their Zen training help them with their feelings? How did their lives and relationships differ from that of their male teachers? How did they express the Dharma in their own way for other female students? How was their teaching consistently different from that of male ancestors? And then part III explores how women's practice provides flexible and pragmatic solutions to issues arising in contemporary Western Zen centers.

Merton & Buddhism

Merton & Buddhism PDF Author: Bonnie Bowman Thurston
Publisher: Fons Vitae Thomas Merton
ISBN: 9781887752848
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Divided into three sections, this insightful volume of essays by numerous scholars focuses on Thomas Merton's interest in and transformation through Buddhism. In addition to analysis of how Merton's studies of Buddhism affected his work in the arts, the study also offers information about his Asian journey as well as a complete bibliography of secondary materials. Contributors include Judith Simmer-Brown, Roger J. Corless, Rubin L.F. Habito, John P. Keenan, Roger Lipsey, Paul M. Pearson, and James Wiseman, OSB.

Seeds of Destruction

Seeds of Destruction PDF Author: Thomas Merton
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1429945079
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
Thomas Merton (1915-1968) is one of the foremost spiritual thinkers of the twentieth century. Though he lived a mostly solitary existence as a Trappist monk, he had a dynamic impact on world affairs through his writing. An outspoken proponent of the antiwar and civil rights movements, he was both hailed as a prophet and castigated for his social criticism. He was also unique among religious leaders in his embrace of Eastern mysticism, positing it as complementary to the Western sacred tradition. Merton is the author of over forty books of poetry, essays, and religious writing, including Mystics and Zen Masters, and The Seven Story Mountain, for which he is best known. His work continues to be widely read to this day.

The Way of Chuang-Tzŭ

The Way of Chuang-Tzŭ PDF Author: Zhuangzi
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
ISBN: 9780811201032
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
Free renderings of selections from the works of Chuang-tzŭ, taken from various translations.

Essential Zen

Essential Zen PDF Author: Kazuaki Tanahashi
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062510460
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
The best collection of Zen wisdom and wit since Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, this lively introduction to Zen Buddhism has it all. Koans, sayings, poems, and stories by Eastern and American Zen teachers and students capture the delightful, challenging, mystifying, mind-stopping, outrageous, and scandalous heart of Zen. 6 illustrations.