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Motorcycles Book Store > Motorcycles books beginning with B
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Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness: Zen Talks on the Sandokai |
Author: Shunryu Suzuki
Published: 2001-10-01 |
List price: $18.95
Our price: $12.89
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As of: March 16th, 2010 06:28:02 AM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 Best Suzuki book yet!
Having read "Zen Mind..." and "Not Always So", I wanted more. This book is AWESOME delivering more of his wonderful teaching and interpreting the Sandokai! I LOVE THIS BOOK!
Great book but sophisticated
This was a great, well written, sophisticated book on Zen that has made a difference in my life. It is based on the "Sandokai" -- a poem orginally written by the 8th century chinese Zen master Sekito. But, although it is "written" by a Japanese monk talking of traditional teachings, it is highly readable and understandable. In addition, and most importantly, it speaks to the heart and the core of Zen.
However, it is probably not a for novice reader: "Zen Mind, Begginner's Mind", and "Not Always So" are excellent prerequsisites to this book. Although it is understandable, the ideas and teachings are rather advanced. The intro mentions that these teachings on the Sandokai are often the last that a Dharma teacher will undertake in his lifetime -- and this series of lectures was Suzuki's take on it shortly before he passed away.
It took me an entire summer to read -- and I would frequently have to read a chapter 3 or 4 times before I felt that I had absorbed the trur meaning of what he was trying to say. That is, the teachings it presents can be absorbed on many different levels from superficial to very deep. It is up to the reader how deep they are willing and able to go...
 Teaching What Cannot Be Taught
This is a collection of talks about the Sandokai, an ancient Chinese poem that is regularly chanted in Zen circles. The poem itself is quite obscure when you first read it and the talks are similarly obscure at first. The rational mind finds it difficult to understand how you can, to take one of his examples, kill earwigs without violating the Buddhist precept against killing. Shunryu Suzuki uses such examples to try to help us move past our usual dualistic thinking.
And, somehow, it works. By the end of the book when the poem is repeated in Suzuki's translation, it makes sense. He has successfully lead us into a place of darkness, that is a place beyond intellectual understanding.
A book to be read slowly, in small doses, and to be contemplated, rather than analyzed and thought about.
I'm a northerner who prefers the southern school...
This is Shunryu Suzuki's commentary on the Sandokai. The Sandokai is a poem by Zen master Sekito Kisen on the inseparability of the relative and the absolute.
You will find this poem in many Zen and Buddhism books. I checked out 10 or 11 books from the library, and this poem was in... I think it was 4 of them. So it wouldnt be very hard to compare the different translations of the peom if one wished. They differ quite a bit. Although the core meaning is always the same.
This poem was written in response to the disagreement between the northern (more hinayana/gradual) and southern (more mahayana/instant) schools that started to distance themselve in the 7th century. Actually it started long before that and continues to this day. Also, the one school, by very nature contains the "other school." So while more and more people were sticking to one side or the other, the absolute teachings of Zen were suffering from this ignorance. Thats where the illuminating rays of Sekito Kisen's wisdom--in the form of the Sandokai--illuminate and expose a dualistic view that so easily creeps into Zen practice and jeopardizes it. Sekito shines his wisdom upon not just the troubles of the northern and southern schools, but on the perils of sticking to dualistic views in and of themselves.
While the actual poem is only a couple pages. It is powerful and very important to all of Buddhism. Suzuki gives a valuable commentary that takes the poem line for line. Each chapter takes 4, 5 or 6 lines of the poem. Suzuki explains and adds his own words of wisdom, experiences and views wich brings out the profound nature of these verses that might otherwise be to deep for most people. You cand read a line and think "yeah I see the meaning of that." Then Suzuki hits it from many angles and tells you not to stick to any point-of-view. Leaving you exposed to the futility of your quick tendency to grasp at things. You can tell Suzuki's understanding of this teaching comes from living experience.
While this book is full of valuable teachings, it suffers at times from being takin from lectures. I know Zen Mind, and Not Always So are also takin from lectures. But this being a commentary on a single poem and not just various lectures put together make it all the more noticeable.
Without the true voice (Suzuki Roshi) of this book around to help, the editors had to take the lectures and prune and shape them into this piece of literature. Editing plays a major role in making all the chapters cohesive. Resulting in a feeling at times of maybe losing some meaning and/or accent. But this isnt a major issue. Just worth noting. Otherwise this is a well presented book. The wisdom found here will be appreciated regardless of any difficulties inherent in a project of this nature.
The Sandokai has meaning far beyond the words used to write it. Suzuki Roshi gives us some very valuable commentary on this meaning "behind the words." If you are intersted in Zen, the Sandokai, or Suzuki Roshi you should read this book. If not, read it anyway.
Getting the Spirit of the Sandokai
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.
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