The Rinzai Zen Way: A Guide to Practice

Description

The first accessible beginner's guide to Rinzai Zen practice. The first accessible beginner's guide to Rinzai Zen practice. The recognition of the true nature of oneself and the universe is the aim of Rinzai Zen-but that experience, known as kensho, is really just the beginning of a life of refining that discovery and putting it into practice in the world. Rinzai, with its famed discipline and its emphasis on koan practice, is one of two main forms of Zen practiced in the West, but it is less familiar than the more prominent Soto school. Meido Moore here remedies that situation by providing this compact and complete introduction to Zen philosophy and practice from the Rinzai perspective. It's an excellent entree to a venerable tradition that goes back through the renowned Hakuin Ekaku in eighteenth-century Japan to its origins in Tang dynasty China-and that offers a path to living with insight and compassion for people today.

Meido Moore is abbot of Korinji, a Rinzai Zen monastery near Madison, Wisconsin, and is a guiding teacher in the international Rinzai Zen Community organization. He is a lineage holder in the Rinzai school and teaches and leads retreats throughout the United States and Europe.

"The word Zen has become an inkblot upon which the West projects its myriad notions of peace, relaxation, and personal fulfillment, usually to commercial ends (there's a Zen Tanning Salon in LA, after all.) Meido Moore is having none of this. The Rinzai Zen Way is a thorough and accessible primer on the history, principles, and practices of authentic Rinzai Zen Buddhism. He offers detailed instructions on how to meditate, chant, work with a teacher, understand the teachings, and manifest them in your daily life, and so helps to restore the word Zen to its proper place."-Shozan Jack Haubner, author of Zen Confidential and Single White Monk "Meido Zentetsu Roshi has produced a concise introduction to the practice of Rinzai Zen as understood from the Japanese Omori Sogen tradition within the Tenryu-ji line of Rinzai Zen. This small book encompasses not only the spirit of Zen practice with concrete advice, but also offers practical instructions on how to harmonize the body and breath for deepening one's practice. It is a wonderful guide for anyone who is serious in taking up the Zen path and working with a teacher."-Guo Gu, author of Passing through the Gateless Barrier "For readers interested in sitting down and beginning a meditation practice, The Rinzai Zen Way offers lucid instruction, good advice, and encouragement. For readers interested in intellectual and conceptual understanding, this wonderfully readable book gives us much to think about."-Reading Religion