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Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go: Waking Up To Who You Are

The Zen school of Mahayana Buddhism contends that each one of us is already a Buddha — the enlightenment we seek is always within us, waiting to be realized through mindfulness and concerted spiritual work. This truth pushes us toward practice, in the hopes that we may awaken our potential and live up to what is inside us. This is a notion taught widely by ninth century Zen Master Lin Chi, and in his tradition Thich Nhat Hanh employs the teachings and writings of Mahayana Buddhism to discuss specific topics in Buddhist study and practice. With these teachings, readers have the tools to awaken the Buddha within.

Paperback: 208 pages

Publisher: Parallax Press (August 28, 2007)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1888375728

ISBN-13: 978-1888375725

Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches

Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces

Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #196,741 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #69 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Eastern > Buddhism > Sacred Writings #40244 in Books > Religion & Spirituality

The Linji-lu (Rinzai-roku) has been for many centuries a hugely important text in the massive collection of Chan (Zen) literature, and it is hence natural that Buddhist scholars and practitioners from a wide variety of backgrounds be attracted to this text and attempt to interpret it. The present book offers such an attempt from the well-known Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, who travels widely giving retreats and who has written many popular books on Buddhist practice.This book belongs to what I term the "devotional" ("practice") aspect of Buddhist lore, and one shouldn't expect it to make an attempt to offer scholarly insights into the formation of the "Linji legend", a phrase which reflects modern scholarship's investigation of old Tang/Song-era records of famous Chan masters. (One such work on the Linji-lu specifically is Albert Welter's excellent book, "The Linji Lu and the Creation of Chan Orthodoxy: The Development of Chan's Records of Sayings Literature"). Modern scholarship has spent much effort dismantling and reconstructing the formation of these old records (which are typical examples of the colloquial "yulu" or "recorded sayings" literature of the Period). The process of building images and "sayings" of famous Tang-era Chan teachers actually involves a reconstruction occurring after-the-fact during the Song Period. Modern Zen students should realize from this it isn't possible to see these surviving documents (naively) as any kind of "word-for-word" snapshot of a Tang-era teacher's "actual" teaching '...although this certainly doesn't rule out genuine clusters of a famous master's teaching being passed down. But enough of all that.

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