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Conceived at the crossroads of Buddhism and indigenous earth-based practice, The Shamanic Bones of Zen explores the deep human traditions of transformation that are made possible by meditation, ceremony, ritual, dreams, and spiritual connection to one’s ancestry. In The Shamanic Bones of Zen, celebrated author and Buddhist teacher Zenju Earthlyn Manuel undertakes a rich exploration of the connections between contemporary Zen practice and shamanic, or indigenous, spirituality. Drawing on her personal journey with the black church, with African, Caribbean, and Native American ceremonial practices, and with Nichiren and Zen Buddhism, she builds a compelling case for discovering and cultivating the shamanic, or magical, elements in Buddhism—many of which have been marginalized by colonialist and modernist forces in the religion. Displaying reverence for the Zen tradition, creativity in expressing her own intuitive seeing, and profound gratitude for the guidance of spirit, Manuel models the path of a seeker unafraid to plumb the depths of her ancestry and face the totality of the present. The book conveys guidance for readers interested in Zen practice including ritual, preparing sanctuaries, engaging in chanting practices, and deepening embodiment with ceremony. "I often felt my ancestors at ease with my practice of Zen. I felt they had led me through other traditions to this practice of ritual and ceremony,“ writes Manuel. ”The ancestors needed me to be still and breathe as they approached with what they had to offer my life.”
A treasury of writings from Wind Bell, the magazine of the San Francisco Zen Center.
This beautiful glimpse into the mind of a modern Zen priest shows us how we can cultivate and experience peace through silence, stillness, and practice. “A balm for our troubled hearts and minds . . . soulful, warm, and welcoming, and—at times—heartbreaking.” —Lion's Roar While there is suffering in the world and in each of us, there is also the possibility and the experience of peace. As Zenju Earthlyn Manuel—a Zen priest and disciple of Thich Nhat Hanh who has written at length on race, gender, sexual orientation, and homelessness—writes in the introduction: “I have testified many times of my suffering. Before I die, I must speak of peace.” The Deepest Peace is a poetic, lyrical ode to the ways contemplative practice illuminates daily life. It is at once a window into Zenju’s personal practice and an invitation to begin our own.
“What does liberation mean when I have incarnated in a particular body, with a particular shape, color, and sex?” In The Way of Tenderness, Zen priest Zenju Earthlyn Manuel brings Buddhist philosophies of emptiness and appearance to bear on race, sexuality, and gender, using wisdom forged through personal experience and practice to rethink problems of identity and privilege. Manuel brings her own experiences as a bisexual black woman into conversation with Buddhism to square our ultimately empty nature with superficial perspectives of everyday life. Her hard-won insights reveal that dry wisdom alone is not sufficient to heal the wounds of the marginalized; an effective practice must embrace the tenderness found where conventional reality and emptiness intersect. Only warmth and compassion can cure hatred and heal the damage it wreaks within us. This is a book that will teach us all.
This landmark presentation at last makes heard the centuries of Zen's female voices. Through exploring the teachings and history of Zen's female ancestors, from the time of the Buddha to ancient and modern female masters in China, Korea, and Japan, Grace Schireson offers us a view of a more balanced Dharma practice, one that is especially applicable to our complex lives, embedded as they are in webs of family relations and responsibilities, and the challenges of love and work. Part I of this book describes female practitioners as they are portrayed in the classic literature of "Patriarchs' Zen"--often as "tea-ladies," bit players in the drama of male students' enlightenments; as "iron maidens," tough-as-nails women always jousting with their male counterparts; or women who themselves become "macho masters," teaching the same Patriarchs' Zen as the men do. Part II of this book presents a different view--a view of how women Zen masters entered Zen practice and how they embodied and taught Zen uniquely as women. This section examines many urgent and illuminating questions about our Zen grandmothers: How did it affect them to be taught by men? What did they feel as they trying to fit into this male practice environment, and how did their Zen training help them with their feelings? How did their lives and relationships differ from that of their male teachers? How did they express the Dharma in their own way for other female students? How was their teaching consistently different from that of male ancestors? And then part III explores how women's practice provides flexible and pragmatic solutions to issues arising in contemporary Western Zen centers.
"It has stayed with me for the last 30 years, a classic portraying Zen mind to our linear thinking." --Phil Jackson, Head Coach of the Chicago Bulls and author of Sacred Hoops Zen Flesh, Zen Bones offers a collection of accessible, primary Zen sources so that readers can contemplate the meaning of Zen for themselves. Within the pages, readers will find: 101 Zen Stories, a collection of tales that recount actual experiences of Chinese and Japanese Zen teachers over a period of more than five centuries The Gateless Gate, the famous thirteenth-century collection of Zen koans Ten Bulls, a twelfth century commentary on the stages of awareness leading to enlightenment Centering, a 4,000 year-old teaching from India that some consider to be the roots of Zen. When Zen Flesh, Zen Bones was published in 1957, it became an instant sensation with an entire generation of readers who were just beginning to experiment with Zen. Over the years it has inspired leading American Zen teachers, students, and practitioners. Its popularity is as high today as ever.
Healing lies at the heart of Zen in the home, as Paula Arai discovered in her pioneering research on the ritual lives of Zen Buddhist laywomen. She reveals a vital stream of religious practice that flourishes outside the bounds of formal institutions through sacred rites that women develop and transmit to one another. Everyday objects and common materials are used in inventive ways. For example, polishing cloths, vivified by prayer and mantra recitation, become potent tools. The creation of beauty through the arts of tea ceremony, calligraphy, poetry, and flower arrangement become rites of healing. Bringing Zen Home brings a fresh perspective to Zen scholarship by uncovering a previously unrecognized but nonetheless vibrant strand of lay practice. The creativity of domestic Zen is evident in the ritual activities that women fashion, weaving tradition and innovation, to gain a sense of wholeness and balance in the midst of illness, loss, and anguish. Their rituals include chanting, ingesting elixirs and consecrated substances, and contemplative approaches that elevate cleaning, cooking, child-rearing, and caring for the sick and dying into spiritual disciplines. Creating beauty is central to domestic Zen and figures prominently in Arai’s analyses. She also discovers a novel application of the concept of Buddha nature as the women honor deceased loved ones as “personal Buddhas.” One of the hallmarks of the study is its longitudinal nature, spanning fourteen years of fieldwork. Arai developed a “second-person,” or relational, approach to ethnographic research prompted by recent trends in psychobiology. This allowed her to cultivate relationships of trust and mutual vulnerability over many years to inquire into not only the practices but also their ongoing and changing roles. The women in her study entrusted her with their life stories, personal reflections, and religious insights, yielding an ethnography rich in descriptive and narrative detail as well as nuanced explorations of the experiential dimensions and effects of rituals. In Bringing Zen Home, the first study of the ritual lives of Zen laywomen, Arai applies a cutting-edge ethnographic method to reveal a thriving domain of religious practice. Her work represents an important contribution on a number of fronts—to Zen studies, ritual studies, scholarship on women and religion, and the cross-cultural study of healing.
For anyone who is curious about the teachings of Buddha and modern Buddhist practice, Tell Me Something about Buddhism offers the perfect introduction. Organized in an easy-to-use Question and Answer format, Soto Zen priest Zenju Earthlyn Manuel answers the many common questions people have about Buddhism, such as: Who Was Buddha? What are the Four Noble Truths? Do you have a holy book like the Bible or Koran? What do Buddhists believe? Are there core teachings? Do you believe in a god? Do some people have good karma and some bad? Why do the monks, nuns, and priests shave their heads? Can Buddhists eat meat? Manuel intertwines throughout the book her personal experiences as one of the first African-American Zen priests in the U.S., her life in the Sangha, and her travels around the world meeting other Buddhist practitioners. Included are about 20 illustrations by the author in her trademark charcoal-and-pencil style.