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Zen Keys (An Image Book)

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"To reach truth is not to accumulate knowledge, but to awaken to the heart of reality." So starts a random chapter in Thich Nhat Hanh's now quite famous book ZEN KEYS. This book is FILLED to the brim with metaphors, allegories, and meditational suggestions Thich provides us with. He references Dogen a few times, using quotes of the old Master. Also interesting is Thich's use of some koans in the end of this work, something he is not "well known for" in many of his works. He provides us with 43 of them to be precise, with commentary following each one. It's just interesting because through the years Thay has seemed to lay off koan work some, yet this is a unique work in that he uses them.

Simply put, this book will live up to your expectations if you read it through and through. Too often we place a book down during a "slow part", never reading it's entirety. The most important facet of reading into Zen for me these days is approaching the texts with a "I don't know it all" mindset. A challenge, to say the least. After practicing and reading with teacher after teacher, group after group, sometimes you get the feeling you know something "special" about the Dharma. When we get this attitude, no book, no zazen, and no teacher can penetrate our ego. It is only when we become babies again that we can allow the light of truth to come back in. Get Thich's book, it's truly wonderful!

Enjoy:)

Hardly a day goes by without a new Thich Nhat Hanh book - which is a very good thing. A Buddhist monk who fled the American War in Vietnam, Thich Nhat Hanh leads a world-wide community centered at Plum Village in south-west France. A critic and target of both the Communist regime and the U.S. backed South, he became well-known in America and a friend of Martin Luther King and Daniel Berrigan. Just as Chinese political oppression forced Tibetan Buddhists onto the world stage, Thich Nhat Hanh's exile allowed the West to come to know Zen better.

"Zen Keys" is one of his earlier books and, unlike many others, is not a meditation text. "Zen Keys" is a serious introduction to the history and practice of Zen from the Buddha to the present. And Zen is practice. Unlike Western religions, Zen does not rely on dogma. Zen and Buddhism are methods of enlightenment, coming to know the real world. We have learned to "see" they world through reason and emotions. Reason and emotions are not bad; they are insufficient to come to know the world. "Reality, he writes, "is only reality when it is not grasped conceptually." (112)

Zen is the practice through which we come to know the world. Using some of Thich Nhat Hanh's books and other works, I have tried meditation. No, I have not attained enlightenment, but I have discovered all too many ways in which I have failed to see reality. Have I come to be a better human being because of "practice"? You'll have to ask someone else. And, yes, it is disconcerting - but so freeing - to realize that my idea of myself is a construct I've assembled over time and not who I am.

As Thich Nhat Hanh points out, Zen and Buddhism do not lead to "navel-gazing". He is a proponent of engaged Buddhism, a modern term which reaches back to one of the oldest schools of Buddhism. He writes that in living in the world we have created, "What we lack is not an ideology or a doctrine that will save the world. What we lack is mindfulness of what we are, of what our situation really is." (155)

Take that, you Communists and Capitalists!

Thich Nhat Hahn uses his personal and direct writing style to do the impossible --- teach the basics of Zen to a western audience. This book is back in print after being unavailable for about twenty-five years. Consider yourself lucky. It is a very effective introduction to Zen, it doesn't dwell on the details and the author doesn't attempt to be mystical and astound you with how enlightened and "zen-er than you" he is. Thich Nhat Hahn tell it like it is. He is a very talented and gentle teacher and I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Zen.

I have a great respect for Thich Nhat Hanh and the many works that he has done in his years with us. This book is another example of his striving to present the joys of Zen to the western world. His poetry, charity, and daily life reflect a pattern of mindfulness that many will never experience. I fear though, as he states, that the Western world will not be able to fully grasp Oriental Zen practice, and a western form of it has arisen. I appreciate the book's simplicity, and honesty. May peace be with you today...

I purchased this book as a source of inspiration for my practice, however it turned out to be a summary of the Zen tradition from Vietnam. By all means it is a good book, just did not fit the current needs of my practice. Nevertheless, the 43 koans (translated to english for the first time by Thay) are a true piece of art, which make this book a good addition to any Zen practitioner's library.

I feel the book "Meet the Real Dragon" by Gudo Wafu Nishijima goes deeper into the essence of Zen practice, and therefore into the essence of life itself.

i had always had a semi-interest in buddhism, derived from ecstatic readings of 'dharma bums' by jack kerouac (another must-have), but disappointed as i couldnt find 'big sur' at the bookstore a month ago, i chanced upon the religion section, and zen keys shone out on the shelf, i picked it up, read a page of thich nhat hanh's contemplative prose, and immmediately bought and took it home devouring it in my bedroom for hours. Nhat Hanhs compassionate and understanding approach to Zen Buddhism makes learning about it easy, and also very rewarding. his take, which is no ones take at all but rather the truth, about zen makes for free-minded thinking thru the eight negations, mindfullness of everyday life, and the wisdom of the zen masters in the kung-ans at the end of the book. i cannot help but be forever changed by this simplistic yet beautiful overlay of Zen Buddhism. anyone, everyone, Americans and materialism and all, MUST read this, dont lose your life in forgetfullness and apathy and be lost in worldly pursuit, be a monk.

Through a careful reading of this book may we return to our own path of prayerfulness in every thing we do.

In ways it reads like Saint Benedict's Rule, or any earlier Catholic work on silent prayer in action. We return to realize what we are doing at every moment, with every gesture, and make that a prayer.

This book need not deter us from our own traditional path, but make us stronger and more dedicated and serious and devote in our path and in our Faith. By this book we may even become better and more effective and true Christians.

The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr., himself a Nobel Peace Prize winner and practioner of prayerful nonviolence and love, nominated this author for the 1967 Nobel Peace. Jesuit Father Daniel Berrigan has swapped introductions for one another's prayer books with this author, including his Uncommon prayer: A book of Psalms. Therefore, we may all feel safe and secure in considering these indications within the context of our Faith, and gain a great edification from its prayerful practice.

This book is wonderfully constructed with presentations and commentaries, as a helpful friend opening to us the secrets of otherwise inscrutable riddles, as a gentle friend drawing us back to awareness and sanity and sanctity in our chaotic and over-occupied world. This book returns us to realizing the mystery of practicing actual poverty as a means of making way for our opening awareness of God silently within our lives. This book returns us to the wonder of silent contemplation of the Divine presence, an ability we so easily forget as we look around and judge instead our neighbor and our clergy and what we wrongly percieve to be their wrongful actions at worship while we ignore our own busy and eager distraction from worshipful prayer.

An interesting quote in this regard is found on page 27:
"Precepts in Buddhism are not imposed by some outside authority. They arise from our own insight based on the practice of mindfulness. To be attached to the form without understanding the essence is to fall into what Buddhism calls attachment to rules. (p.27)"

How much do we see this happening within our own Church where those who do not grasp the essence of God's commandments to practice compassion instead dwell nearly to the point of idolatry on minutiae of ritualistic liturgical practices empty of meaning, leaving no room for the action of the Holy Spirit of God's Love for us! Why not interchange those high fives at the Kiss of Peace if thus we more truly express our love and joy at meeting God in our neighbor? Why not sing those traditional hymns such as Kumbaya, which calls for the presence of God in our lives, if thus we grow more mindful of the Divine Presence immanent amongst us, as promised that where two or more are gathered in My Name, I am with you.

This book restores us to such mindfulness, not only in meditation but within every mundane and physical action, including eating. By this book we become greater contemplatives, as awake as Carthusian monks fully mindful of every action as free from wordly distractions, making thus every action an intense prayer of love. This book can serve as portal back to a deeper realization of our own Faith in this world. Let this book re-open your eyes and ears to the presence of God, in peace, free of anger and distraction.

Especially generous, not only the opening clarity and flowing explanations and commentaries which form the bulk of the book, but also the commentaries on the riddles near the end, which remind me of our Patristic tradition and the sayings (or apophthegmes) of the Desert Fathers. This book fills warmly a spot which yearns in our heart for a path back to the peace which is the center of our Faith tradition, a path now blocked by cries for "holy" war and division. Walk instead the way of peace, as once we all walked, together.

Also available by this author is Peace Is Every Step-Meditation In Action: The Life and Work of Thich Nhat Hanh along with any number of important books. Please do yourself and your busy, distracted, angry, sorrowful heart the great favor of finding this warm friend and good helper and wise and gentle counselor.

Also interesting and helpful in this regard are the books of the Reverend Father Thomas Merton, Trappist monk and Catholic priest, in particular his Mystics and Zen Masters and his Zen and the Birds of Appetite. which excellently draws the compatible parallels of Christianity with Buddhist prayer, as well as his The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (New Directions Book). Father Merton, an excellent teacher in the monastic novitiate, serves uis as great teacher and spiritual master now and forever. Come home to God's peace through the mindful practice of compassion.

Zen Keys by Thich Nhat Hanh does a wonderful job of introducing the reader to the world of Zen, explaining ideas in easy to understand language that makes sense. You learn that Zen is not something external to seek - not a mysterious pearl that only seasoned gurus can get their hands on. Rather, Zen exists, fully, within every single person. That awakening is right there and is waiting to be found.

The book can get a little heavy at times in names and history, but there will be some who appreciate all of that information.

Thich explains that zen is about being mindful of every step, every action you take. It is not about hiding away in a monastery, necessarily - but rather about being fully engaged in every moment of your day. Where many people are caught up in a producing-consuming treadmill, we need to be comfortable with quite, calm, and just "being".

I'm a little hesitant about Thich claiming that "Zen seems to be more authentic" than other religions, I would rather consider that there are multiple paths which can be equally authentic.

There are a number of koans included in the book. Thich makes a point of explaining that koans are not a one-size-fits-all riddle that every person can decipher and figure out. Rather, koans were created for a specific person, in a specific time of their life. It's as if a football coach said to his quarterback "breathe the juice". For outsiders that might be complete nonsense. But if the coach and quarterback had talked about metaphors for years about how juice flows your body, and how juice is an energy which comes from a calm mind, and so on, this might be the perfect thing for the coach to say to him at this moment. It would NOT be the perfect thing for a piano coach to say to her student - she would choose her own metaphor and words to get her message across. So trying to "figure out" someone else's koan can be an exercise in futility.

Still, it's always fun to read through koans, and I did have a favorite in the listing. It was:

"Only the one who drinks
knows exactly whether
the drink is warm or cold."

Well recommended.

This beautiful man is all peace. He is a living example of what he teaches. He is a man living what he believes and teaching it to who ever wants to be a part of the tranquility that he espouses. That does not mean that Hahn is telling us that it is easy. But he is giving us great guidelines of how to achieve what he believes in. I see this man as another Gandhi. Hanh believes that all can be changed as long as we are able to work through our own anger and get to a place of peace that can then permeate the world.How good would that be!
Dr. Gunta Krumins-Caldwell author of On Silver Wings

I recommend that anyone interested in meditation, mindfulness and the place of these essential tools in personal development and for creating a more compassionate society should read this book.
I also recommend 'The Path of Mindfulness Meditation' by Dr Peter Strong, an in-depth exploration of mindfulness meditation.