Encounters in Yoga and Zen: Meetings of Cloth and Stone

ISBN-13: 9781138658998 / Angielski / Twarda / 2016 / 120 str.

Trevor Leggett;?Abar;?Abar

Opis

This book, first published in 1982, collects a fascinating selection from the many traditional Japanese and Indian stories used by teachers in the Eastern spiritual schools to assist students in their training. The author, who spent many years training in both yoga and Zen, has collected the stories from a variety of sources: conversations with teachers, reminiscences in temple magazines of teachers of the past, folk tales used to make a training point, and personal experiences of training. The stories often relate to incidents from ordinary life: a monk in a Buddhist temple attacking another and how the abbot reacts; what an Indian judge, a yogin, says to a thief who pleads that what he did was the will of god; a magnificent new altar-cloth is donated, but never used; or an enthusiast for service sweeps the garden in the early morning while others stay in bed. These are incidents round which a student’s doubts are likely to crystalize, and knowledge of them forms an important part of the background of a tradition.

The aim of the stories is to find realization and inspiration in daily life. They are ordinary, but the traditional presentation given by Trevor Leggett catches at the heart of an attentive reader and reveals something of the inner lines of the currents of life.

The book includes pictures specially brushed by Jacques Allais in what is called the Suiboku style. His work has been praised by the doyen of Japanese Suiboku painters, Nanpu Katayama. Suiboku is eighty percent suggestion: a Suiboku artist would not show both ends of a bridge, only one. The style gives a hint for the focusing of meditation practice, and thus provides a perfect complement to Trevor Leggett’s text.

Spis treści

1. Iron Rods  2. The Preacher  3. The Wine Pot  4. Mirrors  5. Fried Eels  6. A Tremendous Lot  7. The Pure Land  8. The Bridge  9. The Fourth Truth  10. The Vase  11. The Sieve  12. Pearls Before Swine  13. Help, No Help  14. The Buddha’s Fingers  15. Gifts  16. The Backhander  17. The Tortoise  18. Eighty Percent is Perfection  19. Grace of God  20. Will of God  21. Tea  22. Chains  23. The Blue Cloth  24. Sweeping  25. The Needle in the Haystack  26. Incredible  27. Qualification  28. Drunk  29. Meditation  30. The Way of the Merchant  31. Powers  32. The Door  33. The Calligrapher  34. Obstacles  35. Karma  36. Unsteadiness  37. The Nesting Instinct  38. New  39. Looking Up