Re: OT: zen for beginners

[Mech <mech@m3ch.net>]

At 11:30 PM +0100 11/24/09, Raul Bonell wrote:
>guys! may you point me to some good starter Zen book for a young 
>person, an intelligent teenager near 18? easy to understand and 
>adapted to the actual days? maybe some tich naht hanh? i have some 
>watts, suzuki, but i'm not sure about them.. it's for a present. 
>thanks.

How much does he know about Zen already?

When I was 15, the book I kept going back to again and again was "The 
Zen Experience" by Thomas Hoover.  It's more a history book -- 
charting Zen from its beginnings with the original sutras, 
Kumarijiva's concept of Void, and Bodhidharma's journey out of India 
to China.  It explains the philosophical theories while describing 
the lives and beliefs of each of Zen's Patriarchs as the religion 
morphed from Indian Mahayana Buddhism, into the North and South 
schools of Chinese Ch'an, and finally the Rinzai and Soto Zen sects 
of Japan.

So all the philosophy and foundational underpinnings are there, just 
explained in plain English without all the "Ooooeeeeooooeeeeooooo 
we're going to get all mystical and secretive on you" BS.  When I was 
a teenager, I really appreciated the straightforward language and 
approach.

If he's more advanced and already knows quite a bit about the theory, 
you might take a look through some of the books by Roshi Philip 
Kapleau.  Also more straightforward than the "classics" (D.T. Suzuki, 
etc.)

Or if you're looking just to throw him into the deep end, buy him a 
copy of "Zen Flesh, Zen Bones" and give it to him with no 
explanations.  ;)

        --m.
-- 
_____
"take one step outside yourself. the whole path lasts no longer than 
one step..."