Product Description

Here is the first major collection of the teachings of Taizan Maezumi Roshi (1931-1995), one of the first Japanese Zen masters to bring Zen to the West and founding abbot of the Zen Center of Los Angeles and Zen Mountain Center in Idyllwild, California. These short, inspiring readings illuminate Zen practice in simple, eloquent language. Topics include zazen and Zen koans, how to appreciate your life as the life of the Buddha, and the essential matter of life and death. Appreciate Your Life conveys Maezumi Roshi's unique spirit and teaching style, as well as his timeless insights into the practice of Zen. Never satisfied with merely conveying ideas, his teisho, the Zen talks he gave weekly and during retreats, evoked personal questions from his students. Maezumi Roshi insisted that his students address these questions in their own lives. As he often said, "Be intimate with your life." The readings are not teachings or instructions in the traditional sense. They are transcriptions of the master's teisho, living presentations of his direct experience of Zen realization. These teisho are crystalline offerings of Zen insight intended to reach beyond the student's intellect to her or his deepest essence.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #199066 in Books
• Published on: 2002-06-11
• Released on: 2002-06-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Amazon.com Review
Do a roll call of the major foreign Zen priests who lived in America to transmit Zen, and you have a pretty short list: Shunryu Suzuki, Seung Sahn, and Taizan Maezumi. Of these, Maezumi is the least well-known, though he transmitted to 12 successors and established 35 Zen centers. In the great Zen tradition of recording a master's words, Maezumi's students have brought together a number of his teisho, presentations to the disciples of a master's realization. Rather than general lectures or public talks, these short pieces were meant to be heard at times of intense practice, during breaks in meditation, when the student's mind is piqued for sparks of enlightenment. Maezumi touches on subjects relevant to the serious practitioner--the bodhi mind, life as a koan, practicing the paramitas, copying sutras, etc. Though not technically difficult, these pieces assume a background in the fundamentals of Buddhism, perfect for the increasing number of readers who have progressed beyond the introductory level and seek more sophisticated guidance. --Brian Bruya

Review
"A brilliant, simple, infinitely subtle appreciation of this precious life."—Peter Matthiessen, author of The Snow Leopard "With a loving heart, Maezumi Roshi carried these teachings in his two hands across the ocean to offer to the West. Now you hold them in your hands, the subtle, profound, enigmatic Zen that awakens trust in your own true nature. Enjoy."—Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart and After the Ecstasy, the Laundry "We are fortunate, with Appreciate Your Life , to finally have a volume that evokes the voice and broad-minded teaching that have meant so much to all of us in Western Zen."—Zoketsu Norman Fischer, Zen priest and poet, founder of the Everyday Zen Foundation, senior dharma teacher at the San Francisco Zen Center "Maezumi Roshi's dharma is gentle, generous, accessible, humorous, and above all encouraging."—Robert Aitken, author of Taking the Path of Zen and Original Dwelling Place

About the Author
Taizan Maezumi Roshi (1931–1995) was a seminal figure in the transmission of Zen Buddhism to the West. He was founding abbot of the Zen Center of Los Angeles (ZCLA) from 1967 to 1995 and of Zen Mountain Center from 1978 to 1995. He and his successors also founded Zen centers throughout the United States, Europe, and Mexico. Maezumi Roshi established The Kuroda Institute for the Study of Buddhism and Human Values, which promotes Buddhist scholarship and publishes, with the University of Hawaii Press, translations of East Asian Buddhist classics. He coauthored On Zen Practice: Foundation of Practice, On Zen Practice II: Body, Breath and Mind, and The Hazy Moon of Enlightenment. He also provided the commentary for The Way of Everyday Life: Zen Master Dogen's Genjokoan.

Customer Reviews

"Appreciate your life!"
Taizan Maezumi Roshi (1931-1995) was the founder of the White Plum Asanga, one of the largest and most successful of the Western Zen lineages. It is also among the best in its approach to Zen practice, and this slender volume of short teisho shows why. Maezumi Roshi's language is simple and concise while being elegant and yet quite ordinary.

The underlying message here is: Appreciate your life! The direct message is: Appreciate your life! Maezumi Roshi's Dharma talks cover a variety of subjects, from an exploration of Dogen's Fukanzazengi, to the actual practice of sitting zazen, to the effects of daily practice on daily life, but it all comes down to simple humanity and the cultivation of character.

This is a wonderful book for teaching, and zendos frequently use it as a touchstone for discussion and study. Whether you are a Zen practitioner, merely Zen-curious, or know nothing about Zen at all but want to understand the human condition a bit better, APPRECIATE YOUR LIFE is a comfortable and accessible little book, a way to appreciate not only your life, but the good heart of this very wise Master.

A Great Teacher
In the book "Appreciate Your Life", we come in contact with a compilation of teachings once given by one of the West's greatest Dharma propogators. One would not be making an understatement in saying that Taizan Maezumi was quite possibly one of the most influential Zen masters of modern times. Three of his Dharma heirs include Bernie Glassman Roshi, Dennis Genpo Merzel Roshi, and Charlotte Joko Beck. If you know anything about just one of those 3 individuals, you understand Taizan Maezumi's wonderful teachings.

This book shows Maezumi's unique teaching style throughout, providing us with insight after insight unto both the philosophy, and more importantly, the practice of Zen Buddhism. He covers zazen, koan work-and in a nutshell, how to simply appreciate this life we all have. After all, having life is truly awesome! This being so, we go through some rough periods, as well. That's why we practice and sit zazen, why we hold a koan. And yet not only for ourselves, but for everyone we encounter. We literally practice for everyone. I also recommend Tuttle Library's "Teaching of the Great Mountain: Zen Talks by Taizan Maezumi" for those interested in further reading on him. Sincerely, buy this book. It's not "just another book on Zen"; no this book is about life. Guaranteed to not simply collect dust!

Enjoy:)

The other Soto master
This is a great book! When most people think of Japanese masters who brought Soto Zen to the US they think of S. Suzuki, but I feel this book is way better than Maezumi's San Francisco counterpart's Zen Mind Beginer's Mind. Appreciate Your Life is far better at getting to the heart of Zen.