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Title: Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness: Zen Talks on the Sandokai by Shunryu Suzuki, Mel Weitsman, Michael Wenger, Shunryu Suzuki ISBN: 0-520-23212-7 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.75 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Getting the Spirit of the Sandokai
Comment: To get a glimpse of Shunru through this text is very gratifying. He deftly communicates the paradoxical aspects of ji-the apparent-and ri-the unseen. The text takes the reader through subtle aspects of zen thinking mind, but without being overly analytical. When he hears himself getting too conceptual, he pulls away with humor and a very special humanness that communicates beyond words, which is actually the context of the Sandokai! I enjoy picking up Branching Streams and reading it for clarity and inspiration every day, and you will too.
Rating: 4
Summary: A wealth of insight to be found
Comment: This book is largely a well-executed editing effort of a number of talks that Suzuki Roshi gave of the Sandokai, a poem written in the early zen years. The poem, written by the Eighth Ancestor in China, Sekito Kisen, was intended to bridge a perceived (and I am hesitant to say) 'philisophical' gap between two zen schools of the time. One appealed to the 'clever', and the other appealed to the 'dull'. The Sandokai reveals that Buddha-nature transcends all such interpretations.
Each talk addresses a different section of the poem. Each chapter begins with the section of the poem that will be discussed. At the end of each talk there is discussion, consisting of questions from the students followed by the Roshi's response.
While superficially, bridging the gap between the "northern school" and the "southern school" was the impetus, we learn from the Roshi the poem's many deeper meanings. By reading the talks one begins to realize the great import of this poem as a primary and essential work.
Anyone who has read Suzuki's first book can attest to the Roshi's keen ability to impart the most complex subjects on a simple and understandable level. He does so in a way that also recognizes the limitations of such talks.
While this text was clearly not intended to be an introduction to practice, those who regularly practice will find it an invaluable work, and those, such as I, who have worn out the covers of 'Zen Mind Beginner's Mind' over many, many years won't be disappointed. The Sandokai is addressed by the Master in a most refreshing, sometimes humorous, and most enlightening way.
I look forward to wearing out this book as much as the first.
Rating: 5
Summary: A wonderful teacher, though a different book from Zen Mind
Comment: I have no doubt that Shunryu Suzuki will be a great influence on American Buddhism for many years to come. Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (though not "written" by Suzuki-roshi--it's edited from lectures) has been a work that I have turned to again and again through-out my years of practice, finding new levels of insight each time. Branching Streams is a deserving continuation to the publication of Suzuki-roshi's teaching (it is, of course, also based on lectures, coming almost thirty years after his death). But it is a little more slow-going than Zen Mind and probably won't be as accessible to those without some experience of Zen. But, like Zen Mind, there are some beautiful, even poetic moments in the text. If you are just getting started in Zen and haven't read Zen Mind, you should definitely start with that before moving on to this. But if you have read ZM, BM and couldn't get enough, you will enjoy revisiting the Master.
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Title: Not Always So : Practicing the True Spirit of Zen by Shunryu Suzuki, Edward Espe Brown ISBN: 0060957549 Publisher: Quill Pub. Date: 27 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki, Shunryu Suzuki ISBN: 0834800799 Publisher: Weatherhill Pub. Date: December, 1997 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Moon in a Dewdrop : Writings of Zen Master Dogen by Eihei Dogen, Kazuaki Tanahashi ISBN: 086547186X Publisher: North Point Press Pub. Date: 31 October, 1995 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Crooked Cucumber : The Life and Teaching of Shunryu Suzuki by David Chadwick ISBN: 0767901053 Publisher: Broadway Books Pub. Date: 08 February, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: To Shine One Corner of the World : Moments with Shunryu Suzuki by David Chadwick, Students of Shunryu Suzuki ISBN: 0767906519 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 06 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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