Articles / Excerpts

---

The Shōbōgenzō (The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye) is a revered eight-hundred-year-old Zen Buddhism classic written by the Japanese monk Eihei Dōgen. Despite the timeless wisdom of his teachings, many consider the book difficult to understand and daunting to read. In Don't Be a Jerk, Zen priest and bestselling author Brad Warner, through accessible paraphrasing and incisive commentary, applies Dōgen's teachings to modern times. While entertaining and sometimes irreverent, Warner is also an astute scholar who sees in Dōgen very modern psychological concepts, as well as insights on such topics as feminism and reincarnation. Warner even shows that Dōgen offered a "Middle Way" in the currently raging debate between science and religion. For curious readers worried that Dōgen's teachings are too philosophically opaque, Don't Be a Jerk is hilarious, understandable, and wise.

Recommended for experienced practitioners.  Thatcher gives clear step by step  descriptions of how we actually/literally/physically  perceive things. It is not necessary (nor possible)  to access these states of mind all the time but knowing they exist ..."give(s) a student more confidence in the method of insight meditation." Too often we are given dramatic or poetic descriptions of the process which can end up making it seem more esoteric or "out there" than it actually is. This look at the mechanics of  how things work is a much more accessible version than is offered in other books on the same subject.

Wonderful introductory books for beginners by Salzberg,  well-known  Vipassana teacher.