'The ZEN of EVERYTHING! Podcast' ... Episode 26 ... Zen Books

[Jundo]

Episode 26: Zen Books



"Zen is a special transmission outside the scriptures, not depending on words and letters." With that in mind, Jundo and Kirk discuss Zen books: how to read them, what to read, and when to burn them.


THE LINK: https://www.zen-of-everything.com/26


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Gassho, Jundo

SatTodayLAH

[Washin]

:encouragement:gassho1

Gassho
Washin
st-lah

[Bokucho]

Wonderful podcast, given the recent threads about personal reading lists this is such an appropriate topic. It was especially relevant because just this morning the section I was in was Okumura's "The Mountains and Waters Sutra" where Dogen says "They do not know that thought is words." and then "[T]hey do not know that words are liberated from thought." The point in that section is sort of made that doing away with all words and thoughts isn't the final goal, but it's necessary to understand that while words (thoughts) are empty, they're still the way we interact with our perception of the world. It really struck home with the whole "burn all the books" idea as a metaphor.

Something else I found interesting was that I own a copy of "The Way of Zen" by Alan Watts, which I read many years ago, before I practiced zazen, and I thought it was a pretty good basic introduction to eastern philosophy. I recently reread it, and while he does have a lot of misconstrued ideas about Zen, I find his philosophy itself to be a pretty decent read. I wouldn't consider him a Zen teacher by any means, but his writing is pretty good, and in the early 2000s he blew a high school version of me's mind!

Thanks again for the episode, very relevant and entertaining, keep up the good work guys!

Gassho,

Joshua
SatToday

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