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    Miniatures of a Zen Master
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    Miniatures of a Zen Master
    Unavailable
    Miniatures of a Zen Master
    Ebook218 pages1 hour

    Miniatures of a Zen Master

    By Robert Aitken and Nelson Foster

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    About this ebook

    “In this sprightly collection of 188 short texts, [Aitken] offers brief stories, observations, memories, and commentaries.” —Spirituality & Practice
     
    For more than four decades, Robert Aitken Roshi has taught thousands of people the Buddhist practice of Zen meditation, and has led hundreds through their practice of the study of traditional koans. He has authored more than a dozen books; volumes of commentary on sacred texts; works on ethics, daily life, and social action; and one of the best-loved introductions to Zen Buddhism, Taking the Path of Zen. A founder of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, he has spent his life as a political activist, work he continues to this day.
     
    To culminate a long and remarkable life, 91-year-old Aitken Roshi offers a collection of 188 short texts in Miniatures of a Zen Master. Some are clearly parables; others are simple stories, quotations, memories, and commentaries. Resembling Benjamin Franklin's Almanac or the epigrams of Chamfort as much as it does work from ancient sages, this collection of miniatures distills a life devoted to teaching and awareness, of being present, showing up, and making a difference.
     
    “Like some of the finest Zen literature, they read like the contents of one’s own mind and also like a mirror held up to show the mind’s quotidian chatter to be somehow pure.” —BuddhaDharma
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateAug 27, 2009
    ISBN9781582439983
    Unavailable
    Miniatures of a Zen Master
    Author

    Robert Aitken

    Robert Aitken (1917-2010) was Roshi of the Diamond Sangha in Honolulu and the author of Taking the Path of Zen and The Mind of Clover. His introduction to Zen came in a Japanese prison camp during World War II, after he was captured as a civilian in Guam. R. H. Blyth, author of Zen in English Literature, was imprisoned in the same camp, and in this unlikely setting Aitken began the first of several important apprenticeships. After the war Aitken returned often to Japan to study. He became friends with D. T. Suzuki, and studied with Nagakawa Soen Roshi and Yasutani Hakuun Roshi. In 1959 Robert Aitken and his wife, Anne, established a Zen organization, the Diamond Sangha. Aitken was given the title "Roshi" and authorized to teach by Yamada Koun Roshi in 1974.

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