Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness: Zen Talks on the SandokaiWhen Shunryu Suzuki Roshi's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind was published in 1972, it was enthusiastically embraced by Westerners eager for spiritual insight and knowledge of Zen. The book became the most successful treatise on Buddhism in English, selling more than one million copies to date. Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness is the first follow-up volume to Suzuki Roshi's important work. Like Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, it is a collection of lectures that reveal the insight, humor, and intimacy with Zen that made Suzuki Roshi so influential as a teacher. The Sandokai—a poem by the eighth-century Zen master Sekito Kisen (Ch. Shitou Xiqian)—is the subject of these lectures. Given in 1970 at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, the lectures are an example of a Zen teacher in his prime elucidating a venerated, ancient, and difficult work to his Western students. The poem addresses the question of how the oneness of things and the multiplicity of things coexist (or, as Suzuki Roshi expresses it, "things-as-it-is"). Included with the lectures are his students' questions and his direct answers to them, along with a meditation instruction. Suzuki Roshi's teachings are valuable not only for those with a general interest in Buddhism but also for students of Zen practice wanting an example of how a modern master in the Japanese Soto Zen tradition understands this core text today. |
Contents
NOTES TO THE READER | 17 |
FIFTH TALK | 73 |
A SHORT TALK DURING ZAZEN | 147 |
TALK GIVEN TO A VISITING CLASS | 177 |
THE SANDOKAI Compiled Translation by Suzuki Roshi | 190 |
Other editions - View all
Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness: Zen Talks on the Sandokai Shunryu Suzuki Limited preview - 1999 |
Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness: Zen Talks on the Sandokai Shunryu Suzuki Limited preview - 2001 |
Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness: Zen Talks on the Sandokai Shunryu Suzuki,Xiqian,Shitou,S. Roshi Limited preview - 1999 |
Common terms and phrases
absolute actually angry asked Baso Beginner’s big mind bird bright side buddha nature Buddha’s teaching Buddhist chant Chinese completely Daoist derstand di‹cult di¤erent di¤erentiation disciple Dogen Zenji dualistic e¤ort earwig eyes feel foot four elements hear Huineng human idea includes everything Japanese Jinshu’s Kataku Jinne kill kind koan koto lecture light Linji Yixuan listening live master means monk moon mountain mudra Nangaku ness okay poem prac practice zazen problem Qingyuan reality Rinzai Rinzai school river rules sage of India sajara Sandokai school of Zen scolded Seigen Sekito Kisen selfish understanding Shitou sit zazen Sixth Ancestor someone sometimes stick to words strict su¤ering Sutra Suzuki Roshi Tassajara teacher teisho things-as-it-is thinking mind tice translation true sense truth tummy understand things understanding of things utter darkness walk whole woman Yakusan zazen independently zendo