Encouraging Words Zen Buddhist Teachings for Western Students [Paperback]

The inspiration that guided monks and nuns in ancient times is our own deepest incentive as we establish our practice in a world that desperately needs new forms of kinship and love.
—Robert Aitken

Encouraging Wordsis a collection of short talks and brief essays that Aitken Rashi has offered his students at meditation retreats during the past two decades. They are arranged according to themes central to all spiritual seekers—attention, emptiness, coming and going, diligence, death and the afterlife, the sacred self, and the moral path. Aitken provides guidance on pursuing religious practice in a lay context, “re-casting the Dharma to include women, jobs, and family.” He also charts his own quest to develop a set of moral codes in keeping with Buddhism's basic precepts and honoring the enormous ethical challenges faced in the twentieth century.

Encouraging Wordswas nominated for the Tricycle Prize for Outstanding Contribution to Buddhism in America.Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction xv
 
WORDS IN THE DŌJŌ
Introduction 1
The First Night 6
Coming Home 9
The World Does Zazen 11
Emptiness 14
Condition 17
The Single Point 22
Carry Your Practice Lightly 24
Attention 27
Coming and Going 30
Patience 33
The Sacred Self 35
Becoming Settled 38
Switch Back to Mu 40
Diligence 43
The Dark Night 48
Simple and Clear 51
Like a Dream 53
The Last Night 54
Afterword 56
Notes 57
 
WORDS FROM THE RŌSHI
Introduction 63
The Middle Way 65
Using the Self 68
Ordinary Mind Is the Tao 73
Cycles and Stages 79
The Moral Path 76
Dreams and Archetypes 94
Impermanence 105
The Lay Sangha 107
Kōan Study and Its Implications 118
Integrity and Nobility 123
The Net of Indra 127
Nonviolence within the Zendō and Outside 131
About Practice 136
Death and the Afterlife 147
Notes 148