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Summary: This is not a beginner's book.
Review: You must remember that this book contains Shunryu's lecture, which were presented live. That in and of itself would be a great experience. Since we could not all be there, this book is our method to sharing some of his teachings. The lectures go over the description of the sitting Zen experience. You, the Zen student, will constantly refer to this book. This book will not gather dust on your shelf.If you are a beginner, I would direct you to read the "Three Pillars of Zen" first. It was my first book (See my review), and it teaches Zen in a historical and traditional light.
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Summary: priceless
Review: This is a priceless book. Suzuki has managed to distill Dogen's message and present it in a way which is both grounding (one into the moment of reading) and inspiring (one to be ever more aware). I have had this book for many years and it would probably have been the first choice for my Desert Island list. I am very impressed by the subtlety with which Trudy Dixon managed preserved Suzuki's impishness and her skills in conveying to us his genuine, good and compassionate heart as well as his unyielding dedication to practice. This is no shouting, riddle-making and stick-wielding rinzai guy - no, in these pages we encounter a gentle, self-deprecating and deeply compasionate master who is teaching us the wisdom of being in the moment, and helping us to find beauty in simplicity and kindness. There is a lot of dharma-power behind these words - Suzuki has been responsible for founding perhaps the largest and most successful zen community in the Western hemisphere. Why? because the sincerity and depth of his practice imbued unshakeable faith in zazen practice to anyone who met him, even for a moment. It will do the same for you. I strongly recommend this book .
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Summary: Worth the effort
Review: This is an excellent way for amateur zen enthusiasts to get started. I am on my fifth round of listening to these cassettes and they are both informational and enlightening. This can make an impact on your life.
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Summary: Changed My Life
Review: I have been through a lot in my life and was ready to give up. My brother gave this book to me and I read it one night after I had a discouraging day. It gave me a new out look on life and how to approach everything that does or does not concern me. I have now lent that book to over 10 people and they come back to me with the same awe I had. I read it when I'm down. I read it when I'm ready to succeed. I read this book whenever I can. I highly recomend it for anyone who is ready for a change
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Summary: Among the Best
Review: It's hard to add any accolades on top of those from the other reviewers at this site, but aside from the fact that this book has a lot to say about the nature of reality, it makes some very concrete statements about the path to enlightenment and how, in accordance with Soto teaching, it does not always occur in the "instantaneous" way that it is usually described in Zen literature. An encouraging thought for those of us who believe that facing ultimate reality is an ongoing task which has to be nurtured every day. Every Buddhist, whether of the openly committed or the closet kind, should have this one on their bookshelf.
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Summary: A Book for the Ages
Review: If you read only one more book during the rest of your life, make this it. Suzuki points the way to the very heart of Zen, and, if you follow, you will be able to face any event in your life with courage, understanding, and grace. This book was co-produced with the help of S. Suzuki's Sangha, and to them I offer this poem:
TATHAGATA MEN AND WOMEN,
WITH YUCCA LEAF,
YOU PAINTED A BOOK THAT IS A SWORD AGAINST DELUSION,
I BOW AS DEEPLY AS I CAN TO YOU ALL. Gassho!
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Summary: Right Practice - Right Attitude - Right Understanding
Review: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki This was the first book on Zen I read some twenty years ago. To a westerner conditioned to experience one's perceptions through the filter of the mind, it was near incomprehensible at the time and it was only many years later, as I began to establish my sitting practice, that I was able to read Suzuki-Roshi's talks with benefit. This book will probably make little sense to you if you do not practice zazen. If you are looking for an intellectual exposition of Buddhist thought, there are many other books that will better suit your purpose. If you are looking for a how-to method for sitting practice, this book is also probably not the best place to start. However, if you are looking for encouragement with your sitting practice, this book is what you are looking for. Suzuki-Roshi's gentle words will nudge you back onto the cushions and help you feel that there is some sense in what you are doing. His compassion shines through on every page.
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Summary: Wisdom beyond wisdom
Review: Whenever I've read books in the past, one of the things I've looked for has been intellectual satisfaction. In fact, it has almost been a necessity in order for me to appreciate a particular book. Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind offered me little, if any, intellectual satisfaction and yet, I treasure it as one of the greatest books I've ever read. This book (or Buddhism for that matter) is not about intellectual, moral or even spiritual satisfaction. The practice presented in the book is a very matter-of-fact journey into yourself and your true nature. If you are new to Buddhism however, I would not recommend this book as a starting point. I first picked up this book four years ago out of my curiosity for Zen Buddhism, found it to be really abstract and incomprehensible and it collected dust on my bookshelf for years. Last year, I decided to re-introduce myself to what Buddha taught through Steve Hagen's Buddhism Plain and Simple, and simultaneously started practicing at a local Zen center. I have since read Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind a couple of times and found it to be wisdom beyond wisdom. If you want to live each moment of your life fully, this book will undoubtedly be an invaluable tool.
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Summary: Talks with the master
Review: I cannot consider myself a beginner, much less a monk. Even so, I praise this book, knowning it was never intended to refute or confirm any dogmas of the Suttas. As far as I can see it is a collection of recordings from the master's talks. I feel very bad about these so-called Theravada monks bashing a book that doesn't say a word about their practice( maybe that's the problem). Theravada is budhism, strong and linear. So, why these guys infiltrate on a review list, intended to inform people mostly interested in Zen, with an attitude that is a mixture of dvaitin logic and christian fundamentalism? Is this the middle path? Don't you see you are driving many sincere practioners away from Theravada? Maybe you don't care.
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Summary: A golden book on what the Buddha was really all about.
Review: ZEN MIND, BEGINNER'S MIND : Informal talks on Zen Meditation and practice by Shunryu Suzuki. Edited by Trudy Dixon, with a Preface by Huston Smith and an Introduction by Richard Baker. 138 pp. New York and Tokyo : Weatherhill, 1970 and Reprinted. Some years ago I undertook a fairly extensive program of reading in Indian, Chinese, and Japanese Buddhism and in Zen. Most of my Zen books have since disappeared. Only the choicest remain, among which is Shunryu Suzuki's 'Zen Mind Beginner's Mind.' Buddhism may be said to have begun with the enlightement of the Buddha. Many centuries later, however, when Buddhism entered China, an incredibly elaborate and complex superstructure of Indian scholastic thought had grown up around the Buddha's original insight. The Chinese, with their basically down-to-earth and common sense attitude, had little use for Indian over-elaboration and set about ridding Buddhism of it. The Chinese, as Lin Yutang says, believe in a reasonable use of reason, and not in reason's excesses. The end product of their effort to rid Buddhist thought of its heavy freight of scholasticism, and to shift the emphasis from theory back to the practical by centering Buddhism once again in the enlightenment experience, became what the Chinese know as Ch'an and the Japanese as Zen. As Shunryu Suzuki himself pointed out, when freed of unnecessary theory and speculation, Buddhism as Zen becomes something that is basically "quite simple" (page 64). Its essence was brilliantly captured in the thirty-one verses of Third Patriarch Seng-ts'an's 'Hsin-hsin-ming,' the very first Zen treatise in verse. This is a beautiful text that deserves to be far better known, and an easily accessible translation will be found in D. T. Suzuki's 'Manual of Zen Budhism' ('On Believing in Mind,' pages 76-82). The first verse of the original Chinese may be read as follows, with oblique marks to indicate line breaks: "To realize the Way is not difficult / If you'd only stop choosing; / Just let go of all of your hate, and love, / And everything will be brilliantly clear" (my transl). This statement may gain in meaning if we set it alongside an observation made by the great Zen Master Dogen (1200-1253), founder of the Japanese Soto sect of Zen Buddhism and one of the most brilliant philosophical minds Buddhism has ever produced, who wrote in 'Genjo Koan,' the third chapter of his 'Shobogenzo' : "Conveying the self to the myriad things to authenticate them is delusion; the myriad things advancing to authenticate the self is enlightenment" (Tr., F. H. Cook, 'Sounds of Valley Streams,' page 66). Suzuki Shunryu, who as a member of the Soto school was a direct spiritual descendant of Dogen, would certainly have understood this. In fact, so far as I can see, the idea expressed by both Seng-ts'an and Dogen Zenji is at the very center of his book. 'Zen Mind Beginner's Mind' is a golden book that may be heartily recommended to all open-minded readers. In it they will find a Buddhism freed of all scholastic superfluities and unnecessary elaboration, and one that returns us to what the Buddha was really about.
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