Zen in the Age of Anxiety: Wisdom for Navigating Our Modern Lives

Description

Zen wisdom for identifying the causes of mental and emotional anxiety epidemic in today's world and for finding the path to a peaceful heart in the midst of them--a path that leads directly though the center of the anxiety we're trying to escape. An ancient Buddhist proverb says, "Sickness and medicine heal each other." Tim Burkett would agree and offer his own resonant proverb, "Because there is wounding and splintering there is suturing and healing." Wounding and healing are innate aspects of being human, he declares, and understanding the relationship between them is the key to a peaceful heart and purpose-driven life. "Medicine and sickness heal each other" means that the path to a peaceful heart does not lie outside the anxiety we seek to escape--but rather leads through the center of it. Burkett provides wisdom from Zen (channeled through his many other experiences of psychotherapy and life) for first identifying the problems of pain and anxiety particularly where they most strongly manifest for modern people--in stuff like money, self-worth, sex, success vs. failure, and so forth. He then shows how if we understand our essentially undivided nature, it becomes clear that healing these negative states is effected only by going into them--not assailing them as though there were a solid "me" capable of eradicating them through assault. Each of the ten chapters ends with a section called "Doing the Work," which consists of three or four questions and/or meditative exercises. This section brings home the main points of the chapter, applying them directly to the reader's own life situations.

TIM BURKETT, PhD, is Guiding Teacher of the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is also a licensed psychologist and former director of a large mental health agency. He was a student of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi and later of Dainin Katagiri Roshi, in whose lineage he is a dharma heir.

"This is a book imbued with love and wisdom, full of passages of fluid prose, woven in with carefully chosen Zen stories, poetry, and relevant research findings. It includes clear explanations of the power of diligent meditation practice to transform our various human difficulties into clear seeing, equanimity, and ease, followed by practical exercises about how to go about this work. This is a book about the substance and beauty of Zen practice, a book I will happily read and recommend to my own students."-Jan Chozen Bays, author of Mindful Eating and How to Train a Wild Elephant "I gained so much from reading Tim's book, especially about how to hold and handle my own anxieties. Here is an encouraging handbook on how Buddhist values and practices can increase our sense of connectedness and foster inner-and outer-peace. I especially liked Tim's Nine Keys that can open any of us to healing powers in life events and in ourselves too."-David Richo, author of The Five Things We Cannot Change and How to Be an Adult in Relationships "With an artless simplicity born of deeply integrated and compassionate wisdom, Tim Burkett speaks to the beginner's mind in each one of us."-Cynthia Bourgeault, author of The Heart of Centering Prayer "Zen in the Age of Anxiety is a vitally important book for us all. Not only is it wonderfully written, but Tim Burkett, the guiding teacher at the Minneapolis Zendos, speaks eloquently from his deep knowledge of Zen, psychology, and neuroplasticity, which he integrates flawlessly. The work addresses the many dilemmas we encounter both in practice and life itself. Tim Burkett's kindness and humanity ring out loudly as a result of his years not only teaching but of living fully and being a wonderful human being. This is deeply important, as it is all too easy for practice to become one-sided, skewed, and unwittingly dangerous. The many dimensions in this book help us not fall into easy answers and potholes of all kinds. The book is a real treasure of wisdom, experience, kindness, and inspiration. I could not put it down."-Brenda Eshin Shoshanna, PhD, author of Zen and the Art of Falling in Love "Now the guiding teacher at the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center in Minneapolis, Burkett uses his teacher's advice to frame a thoughtful life manual for modern seekers and meditators-especially those who, like Burkett, lean away from the rigidity of formal religion. For Burkett, the Buddhist precepts are gifts, not rules, that frame a wholesome life. Zen in the Age of Anxiety can help nontraditionalists find their way with those gifts in hand."-Tricycle: The Buddhist Review "Through companionable wisdom and focused practice, Zen in the Age of Anxiety is a guidebook for applying Zen principles to our troubled and harried lives. The book explores the paradox of the centered peace of Zen beliefs in the chaos of modernity. As both a psychologist and a Zen Buddhist priest, Tim Burkett's vocations pair a broad knowledge of human behavior with the compassion, humor, and openness of Zen."-Foreword Reviews "Using an informal, friendly tone, Burkett offers clear explanations and examples to illustrate core Zen ideas. Compiled from Burkett's former talks, this light book will appeal to readers who are new to Buddhism."-Publishers Weekly "Zen in the Age of Anxiety shimmers with insights, epiphanies and good medicine for all that ails us as individuals and as a society."-Spirituality & Practice