| Zen Heart: Simple Advice for Living with Mindfulness and Compassion | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 7 reviews)
Sales Rank: 50116
Category: Book
Author: Ezra Bayda
Publisher: Shambhala
Studio: Shambhala
Manufacturer: Shambhala
Label: Shambhala
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.9
ISBN: 1590305434
Dewey Decimal Number: 294.3444
EAN: 9781590305430
ASIN: 1590305434
Publication Date: July 8, 2008
Release Date: July 8, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
There's a secret to spiritual practice, and it's surprisingly simple: learn to be present with attention. Do that, and the whole world becomes your teacher, you wake up to the sacredness of every aspect of existence, and compassion for others arises without even thinking about it. It's indeed just that simple, says Zen teacher Ezra Bayda, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's easy?especially when being present brings us up against the painful parts of life. Bayda provides a wealth of practical advice for making difficult experiences a valued part of the path and for making mindulness a daily habit. He breaks practice down into three phases:The Me Phase, in which we uncover our most basic and tightly-clung-to beliefs about ourselves, observe our emotions, and become intimate with our fearsBeing Awareness, in which we cultivate a larger sense of what life is, transforming our limited experience into a more spacious sense of beingBeing Kindness, in which we learn to connect with the love that is our true nature, and learn to live from that place of kindness and compassion
To learn more about the author, Ezra Bayda, go to www.zencentersandiego.org.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
Simple... and exceptional. September 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Ah... If I'd only read the introduction to Zen Heart so many years ago---before I got trapped in all of these ideas about what spiritual practice and/or Buddhism, specifically, would "do" for me. I could have saved myself a lot of heartache and disappointment.
I believe Ezra Bayda is among the most talented writers in the Buddhist canon. Bayda is especially good at no nonsense prose that gets right to the point. He is highly readable and informative---no small feat. Indeed, I think Bayda makes the rich teachings of Zen and the Buddha more alive, accessible and compelling than any contemporary author.
Zen Heart, to me, is Bayda's most fully realized and comprehensive effort--better than At Home in the Muddy Water. But it's still short and (bitter)sweet; after all, if you're coming to Zen in hopes that everything is life will be happily-ever-after, Bayda dispels that notion right on page 1. But I find that refreshing.
It's very easy to get lost in practice in spite of our best efforts or a great teacher. I find that, on the occasion, reading a book like helps me get unstuck; it's also a way of holding up a mirror and seeing one's self in the most unflattering (but ultimately helpful) way possible.
Bayda is often compared to Pema Chodron--Buddhism's rock star nun in Nova Scotia. But it's Bayda's work that I find more useful, more developed, more inspiring. This is a book, without question, that I would recommend to everyone--whatever your spiritual or religious persuasion.
A Future Classic September 11, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
What a pleasant surprise! A dharma book that's insightful, well-written, practical, and inspiring. When I picked up Zen Heart: Living with Mindfulness and Compassion, I wasn't expecting much. I'd read Ezra Bayda's other two books, so I pretty much knew what he had to say.
I was wrong. Ezra has much to say, most of it insightful and useful in the midst of our everyday lives. The book maps out the spiritual life in a new way and offers a plethora of practice ideas, pointers, and analysis. I feel like someone's handed me a treasure of useful tips that I can use for a lifetime or more. This is a book to come back to again in one or five or twenty years.
He breaks up the path into three stages: the Me-Phase, Being Awareness, and Being Kindness. Briefly, the Me-Phase is about becoming aware of our conditioned patterns of thought and action. Being Awareness is expanding our perspective in the wider container of awareness, the one mind, you could say, which is where Zen is normally concerned. Finally, Being Kindness is connecting with our true compassionate nature. All three are indispensable phases of the path.
In each phase, Ezra offers practical tips and advice to help us gain more understanding and awareness and urges us to remember that the point of all this is not to change ourselves, but rather to become aware of the manifold ways we cut ourselves off from this life. It's not as simple as just "being here now" as Eckhart Tolle might maintain. The ego is tricky, and a lot of the work to be done is psychological in nature.
This is where this book excels -- in giving us tools with which we can clue into the ego's antics, our own particular conditioning. In one chapter he provides three crucial questions to bring us out our own heads and into our bodies: Can I welcome this as my path? What is my most believed thought right now? What is this? He details the ways we can use these questions and why they're of value.
His primary teaching, if I can sum it up in a nutshell (I can't), is to reside in the physical experience of this moment, right now, as it is. Much of our suffering comes from being up in our heads where we spin our me-stories and create more tension and suffering for ourselves and others. The more we can be with life as it is, the more clear our lives will be, and we'll be able to connect to our true heart-mind, that which is known as "our true nature."
There wasn't a chapter I didn't like. In each chapter I felt like I gained something, a new insight, a new way to notice my conditioning, and inspiration. There's a great meditation in the book too. It's a structured way to do shikan-taza, which is a kind of nondual awareness meditation popular in Zen and Dzogchen but very difficult to do. I found his instructions helpful and wondered: why didn't I think of that? The appendices are also excellent, detailing basic meditation instructions, essential reminders (think "slogans" of the Seven Point Mind Training), and Three Vows.
live in being kindness September 10, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
In his latest book, the author enlists the reader in an exploration of the depths of her/his nature. He reassures us that we need not make changes in our lives, and gently invites the reader to, instead, look deeply. He addresses fear, and shares his process of living into Being Kindness without proselytizing. His work is like a guide that you might encounter in a jungle. This book is neither a quick read nor a quick fix, yet the author's observations provide a feast in which we may all partake.
So lucid you can put it into practice! September 9, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Once in a while a book comes a long that really speaks to me, that I find incredibly helpful. Zen Heart is just such a book. Most Zen books tend to confuse me, but this one is so lucid I can relate to it and put the practices to work in my life. This book really speaks to me in a big way. The author not only clearly identify problems we come across in practice and applying them to life, but he gives simple, clear instruction on how to work with those problems, how to increase our awareness and loving kindness by taking life on moment by moment. I'm getting a lot out of this book and will reread it in the future.
A great book September 6, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Ezra has given us another great book that will be so helpful to folks who are looking for a way to live more fully. Ezra, along with Sensei Tony Stultz and Cheri Huber are the best Buddhist oriented spiritual teachers out there!
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