Bøger af James Ishmael Ford

An intimate mystery encompasses you and tugs upon your heart—what does it mean to follow that tug across the arc of a spiritual life?Reflecting out of more than fifty years of practice in Zen Buddhism, Unitarian Universalism, and other contemplative traditions, James Ishmael Ford invites us into a journey through life's mysteries and the stages of spiritual development.Lightly structured by the archetypal Buddhist oxherding images, Ford’s exploration is rooted in the Zen way while being deeply enriched by various strains of world mysticism. The book, sprinkled with insights and quotes from Buddhist, Daoist, and Christian traditions, serves as a map and a companion to spiritual seekers or pilgrims—whether within one religious tradition or cobbling together a way of one’s own. “Here is the most natural of all natural experiences,” writes Ford. “In the midst of our suffering, our longing, our desperation, we capture a glimpse. Something touches us. And with that, if we are lucky and really notice some movement of some spirit within us, we turn our attention to the intimate way.”

This instant classic is a watershed volume sure to rapidly take its place for generations alongside The Three Pillars of Zen as one the first books someone brand new to Zen will turn to as a starting place. The word "Mu" is one ancient Zen teacher's response to the earnest question of whether even a dog has "buddha nature"--and discovering for ourselves the meaning of the master's response is the urgent work of each of us who yearns to be open and at peace. "Practicing Mu" is synonymous with practicing Zen, and "sitting with Mu" is an apt description all Zen meditation. And it is said that all thousands and thousands of koans in the Zen tradition are really just further elaborations of Zen's most important koan, Mu. This volume brings to together teachers, ancient and modern, from across centuries and the full spectrum of the Zen world to illuminate and clarify the essential matter, the question of how to be most truly ourselves at the deepest level. As the many teachers in this book talk about Mu, we learn how work with the breath in Zen meditation, how to open ourselves to difficulty and joy equally, and how to find freedom amid sinks full of dishes and cars full of children. Though the third published in Wisdom's "Essential Writings of Zen" series of anthologies (following The Art of Just Sitting, and Sitting with Koans), The Book of Mu is the entryway to the other two, the one with the broadest appeal and the one that everyone should read first.