Let knowledge and new perspectives color your journey

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It’s wonderful to dip into the diversity of interpretations regarding the tradition of meditation. Reading offers a chance to deepen your understanding of the concepts associated with the tradition of mediation no matter where you are on your journey.

Here is a list of books that you may find helpful. You can start anywhere you wish, go where your curiosity leads you.

BEGINNING

John Daishin Buksbazen, Zen Meditation in Plain English

Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

Charlotte Joko Beck, Everyday Zen

Peter Matthiessen, Nine Headed Dragon River

Robert Aitken, Taking the Path of Zen

Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart

John Daido Loori, The Still Point

Taizan Maezumi, Appreciate Your Life

Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching

Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart

Chogyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

ESTABLISHING

Kaz Tanahashi (editor), Beyond Thinking: A Guide to Zen Meditation

Zhengue Honghzhi, Cultivating the Empty Field: The Silent Illumination of Zen Master Hongzhi.

Dogen, The Wholehearted Way

Bernie Glassman, Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master’s Lessons in Living a Life That Matters

Peter Mattheissen, Are We There Yet?: A Zen Journey Through Space and Time

Damien Keown, Buddhist Ethics: A Very Short Introduction

Dan Taigen Leighton, (tran.) Cultivating the Empty Field

Shohaku Okumura, Living by Vow: A Practical Introduction to Eight Essential Zen Chants and Texts

Zenkai Shibayama, Gateless Barrier: Zen Comments on the Mumonkan

Shunryu Suzuki, Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness: Zen Talks on the Sandokai

DEEPENING

Francis Cook, Transmitting the Light: Zen Master Kaizan’s Denkoroku

Red Pine, The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma

Dogen, Moon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dogen

Dogen. How to Cook Your Life: From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment

Dongshan, Just This Is It: Dongshan and the Practice of Suchness

Burton Watson, (tran.) The Analects of Confucius

Burton Watson, (tran.) Zhuangzi: Basic Writings

Ben Connelly, Inside the Grass Hut: Living Shitou’s Classic Zen Poem

Philip Yampolsky, The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch

Andrew Ferguson, Zen’s Chinese Heritage: The Masters and Their Teachings

Lex Hixon, Living Buddha Zen

Steven Heine (ed.). Zen Ritual: Studies of Zen Buddhist Theory in Practice

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