Living Everyday Zen [Audiobook] [Audio CD]

Charlotte Joko Beck (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2008

In her first and only audio teaching program, one of America¿s best-known Zen teachers brings practice into everyday living.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Charlotte Joko Beck is a renowned Zen teacher, and founder of the Zen Center in San Diego, which she ran for more than two decades. In the 1960s she studied and trained with Soen Nakagawa Roshi, who she considers her teacher. Two years ago she moved to Prescott, Arizona and founded the Zen Center of Prescott where she currently resides and teaches. She is the author of two books: Everyday Zen: Love and Work (HarperCollins, 1989) and Nothing Special: Living Zen (HarperCollins, 1994). Both books have been translated into more than a half dozen languages.

From AudioFile

This audio course with Beck includes the voices of some of her students, but mostly you'll hear Beck herself, imperfect and unadorned, offering thoughts on everyday Zen. Beck's insights are voiced in down-to-earth, practical phrases that explain how a Zen approach is useful in daily life--particularly in those irritating encounters we're all bound to endure, from traffic to difficult people. Beck says she'll discuss a "hodgepodge" of things that may not always hold together, but the collective effect of her thoughts is refreshingly clear. Practice IS hard, she says, and we don't always succeed. But being aware of our distractions and failures moves us closer to living gracefully in the moment, free of the past and future, here and now, satisfied, and fully alive. J.C.G. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Sounds True, Incorporated (March 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591798051
• ISBN-13: 978-1591798057
• Product Dimensions: 5.7 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #177,982 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As good as the books, April 20, 2008

By 

Ross Smith (San Jose, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Living Everyday Zen (Audio CD)

The compassion and clear message found in Nothing Special & Everyday Zen comes through in these CDs. There are differences. The books are organized into themes. The CDs are a set of talks with some Q&A, so you can hear her think and how she interacts with her students without editing. The books have more metaphors, like ice cubes and containers. The talks are more direct.

There are three and a half-hours of talks and Q&A. The questions were hard to hear in a car, but she is always easy to hear. Section titles:

CD 1. Concentration, Reactive emotion-thought, Core beliefs, False emotion and true emotion, Being zero, Elegance is refusal, Radiance, Our changing perception of radiance

CD 2. The simplicity of practice, The necessity of persistence, Life as beautiful and fierce, The no-self, Living in stillness, The important questions, The absolute and relative, True practice never stops, The importance of the vow, Patience

CD 3. Being in the box, Getting out of the box, Rapidly moving out of the box, Life as it is, Embracing failure, Developing steadiness, Being in practice for a lifetime, The three easy steps of practice, The key to freedom.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Joko is the reason that I practice Zen, sitting everyday., September 30, 2009

By 

R. Zhang (Redwood City,, ca USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Living Everyday Zen (Audio CD)

I love both of her books and this CD set. I am Asian. I had been very aware of the Buddhist religion for a long time without practicing it until I read her first book "Everyday Zen". All of a sudden, this ancient religion/philosophy is very relevant to my everyday life. All she talks about in her books and this CD set are things that are happening in all of our lives right now. I knew all along the wisdom in Buddhist religion, but I just didn't know how I can use that in my daily life. How can I live it? Joko explains this better than any other books that I read. Knowing Zen intellectually is one thing, actually living it everyday of your life is something else. She teaches you, in her books and this CD set, how to live a better, happier and more satisfying life. This CD set has really good discussions. I would still recommend reading her first book, "Everyday Zen" first to get a good framework of Joko's approach to Zen.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Something Special: Living Zen, June 6, 2008

By 

Mark Kobleur (San Diego) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Living Everyday Zen (Audio CD)

If you have a practice or are trying to start one, don't pass this up.
The first 10 minutes of the first talk provides all the instruction you need for at least your first few years of practice.
Thank you Joko, you're a gift!