Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen - Softcover

Shunryu Suzuki

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060957549 ISBN 13: 9780060957544

Publisher: Bravo Ltd, 2003

Synopsis

Not Always So is based on Shunryu Suzuki's lectures and is framed in his own inimitable, allusive, paradoxical style, rich with unexpected and off centre insights. Suzuki knew he was dying at the time of the lectures, which gives his thoughts an urgency and focus even sharper than in the earlier book. In Not Always So Suzuki once again voices Zen in everyday language with the vigour, sensitivity, and buoyancy of a true friend. Here is support and nourishment. Here is a mother and father lending a hand, but letting you find your own way. Here is guidance which empowers your freedom (or way seeking mind), rather than pinning you down to directions and techniques. Here is teaching which encourages you to touch and know your true heart and to express yourself fully, teaching which is not teaching from outside, but a voice arising in your own being.

About this title

Review

"Indeed something very special . . . [Brown] has edited transcriptions of Suzuki's talks that both read well on the page and capture the style, humor and solid grasp evident in [Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind]. This will prove highly valuable to anyone, rank novice or Zen master."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

About the Author

Shunryu Suzuki-roshi, a Japanese Zen priest belonging to the Soto lineage, came to San Francisco in 1959 at the age of fifty-four. Already a respected Zen master in Japan, he was impressed by the seriousness and quality of "beginner's mind" among Americans he met who were interested in Zen and decided to settle here. As more and more people of non-Japanese background joined him in meditation, the Zen Center came into being and he was its first abbot. Under his tutelage, Zen Center grew into City Center, Green Gulch Farm, and Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. He was undoubtedly one of the most influential Zen teachers of his time. Some of his edited talks have been collected in the books Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind; Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen; and Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness: Zen Talks on the Sandokai. Shunryu Suzuki died in 1971.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bravo Ltd
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0060957549
• ISBN 13: 9780060957544
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 176