Encouraging Words: Zen Buddhist Teachings for Western Students [Paperback]

Nominated for the Tricycle Prize for Outstanding Contribution to Buddhism in America—a collection of short talks and essays from a renowned meditation teacher.

The inspiration that guided monks and nuns in ancient times is our own deepest incentive as we establish our practice in a world that desperately needs new forms of kinship and love.
—Robert Aitken

In this inspiring collection, you will find a series of talks and essays that Aitken Rashi has offered his students at meditation retreats during the past two decades. They are arranged according to themes central to all spiritual seekers—attention, emptiness, coming and going, diligence, death and the afterlife, the sacred self, and the moral path. Aitken provides guidance on pursuing religious practice in a lay context, “re-casting the Dharma to include women, jobs, and family.” He also charts his own quest to develop a set of moral codes in keeping with Buddhism's basic precepts and honoring the enormous ethical challenges faced in the twentieth century.Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction xv
 
WORDS IN THE DŌJŌ
Introduction 1
The First Night 6
Coming Home 9
The World Does Zazen 11
Emptiness 14
Condition 17
The Single Point 22
Carry Your Practice Lightly 24
Attention 27
Coming and Going 30
Patience 33
The Sacred Self 35
Becoming Settled 38
Switch Back to Mu 40
Diligence 43
The Dark Night 48
Simple and Clear 51
Like a Dream 53
The Last Night 54
Afterword 56
Notes 57
 
WORDS FROM THE RŌSHI
Introduction 63
The Middle Way 65
Using the Self 68&ll*