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Successful living means functioning well in love and work, declared Sigmund Freud. Yet most Zen teaching derives from a monastic tradition that is far removed from the ordinary world of romantic and sexual love, family and home life, ordinary jobs and careers. Few Western students of Zen live apart in traditionally structured monastic communities. Most are preoccupied with the same tasks as everyone else: creating or dissolving a relationship, changing diapers, negotiating a mortgage, seeking a job promotion.
The selections included here are edited versions of informal talks recorded during intensive meditation retreats or regular Saturday morning programs. In them Joko frequently refers to zazen, the traditional Zen meditation, simply as sitting. Sangha is the Buddhist term for the congregation or community of persons who practice together; the Dharma may be approximately translated as Truth, learning or right living. The retreats, called sesshin last from two to seven days and are conducted in silence, except for essential communication between teacher... Joko has little patience with romanticized spirituality, idealized sweetness and light that seeks to bypass reality and the suffering it brings. She is found of quoting a line from Shoyo Roku: From the withered tree, a flower blooms. Through living each moment as it is, the ego gradually drops away, revealing the wonder of everyday life. Joko travels this path with us, and her words, extraordinary in their very ordinariness, help to point way : elegant wisdom in plain clothes.
CONDITION: Soft Cover, USED lightly, 1989, very good condition, 212 pages
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