The Practice of Not Thinking by Ryunosuke Koike
What if we could learn to look instead of see, listen instead of hear, feel instead of touch? Former monk Ryunosuke Koike shows how, by incorporating simple Zen practices into our daily lives, we can reconnect with our five senses and live in a more peaceful, positive way. When we focus on our senses and learn to re-train our brains and our bodies, we start to eliminate the distracting noise of our minds and the negative thoughts that create anxiety. By following Ryunosuke Koike's practical steps on how to breathe, listen, speak, laugh, love and even sleep in a new way, we can improve our interactions with others, feel less stressed at work and make every day calmer.
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Zen and the Art of Dealing with Difficult People by Mark Westmoquette
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This is a guide to applying the teachings of mindfulness and Zen to the troublesome or challenging people in our lives. Perhaps you can see there’s often a pattern to your behaviour in relation to them and that it often causes pain – perhaps a great deal of pain. The only way we can grow is by facing this pain, acknowledging how we feel and how we’ve reacted, and making an intention or commitment to end this repeating pattern of suffering.
In this book, Mark Westmoquette speaks from a place of profound personal experience. A Zen monk, he has endured two life-changing traumas caused by other people: his sexual abuse by his own father; and his stepfather’s death and mother’s very serious injury in a car crash due to the careless driving of an off-duty policeman. He stresses that by bringing awareness and kindness to these relationships, our initial stance of “I can’t stand this person, they need to change” will naturally shift into something much broader and more inclusive. The book makes playful use of Zen koans – apparently nonsensical phrases or stories – to help jar us out of habitual ways of perceiving the world and nudge us toward a new perspective of wisdom and compassion.
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Practical Zen Yoga by Julian Daizan Skinner
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Based in the Buddha’s mindful perception of the universality of change, the embodied spiritual path of Zen yoga aligns us with the seasons – not only the cycles of the year but the seasons or phases of human life, and also the seasons of change within the individual spiritual journey in “Spring is perfectly spring; it is also transforming into summer.” Daizan invites you to join him on the Zen journey of the ‘middle way’, finding balance on the physical, energetic and emotional levels and approaching the dawning and stabilisation of awakened awareness. Interviews with a range of Zen yoga practitioners underline that this is a practice you make your own. Attitudes of curiosity, kindness and adaptability underpin the work making this a book that’s transformative for any age and body type.
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Dogen's Formative Years in China by Takashi James Kodera
£40.00
Second hand / Antiquarian.
Published: Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1980 (first edition)
Condition: Fine. Dust jacket unclipped, in protective cellophane wrapper. Pages clean and unmarked.
"Dogen was the founder of the Soto School of Zen and one of the most influential thinkers in the history of Japanese Buddhism. When originally published, this historical and textual study was the first to examine in detail the line of continuity between Dogen and his Chinese predecessors, through his Chinese master, Ju-ching."
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