Product Description

What is the beginning and end of our practice? Simply, to create a little shift from the spinning world we've got in our heads to right-here-now." So begins Charlotte Joko Beck on Living Everyday Zen, the first audio program from this cherished voice in American Zen. Living Everyday Zen collects essential insights from Charlotte Joko Beck's half-century of teaching into three vivid CDs. Here, this legendary Zen teacher and bestselling author talks to people from every spiritual tradition on the topics of: * Zen: to clearly see you are life itself and not separated from life * Wearing out your "if onlies" to discover for yourself that fulfillment is only in the moment * Meditation: awareness of what is--directly perceived * Closing the gap between the "I" and the "That," and more "We enter a discipline like Zen practice so that we can learn to live in a sane way," explains Charlotte Joko Beck. "Ultimately the result of Zen practice is working better in the office, raising our kids better, and having better relationships." With Living Everyday Zen, she offers the timeless wisdom of this venerable tradition in an accessible, down-to-earth style that will help students new and old lead lives of benefit to all.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #332179 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03
• Format: Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 3
• Binding: Audio CD
• 1 pages

From AudioFile
This audio course with Beck includes the voices of some of her students, but mostly you'll hear Beck herself, imperfect and unadorned, offering thoughts on everyday Zen. Beck's insights are voiced in down-to-earth, practical phrases that explain how a Zen approach is useful in daily life--particularly in those irritating encounters we're all bound to endure, from traffic to difficult people. Beck says she'll discuss a "hodgepodge" of things that may not always hold together, but the collective effect of her thoughts is refreshingly clear. Practice IS hard, she says, and we don't always succeed. But being aware of our distractions and failures moves us closer to living gracefully in the moment, free of the past and future, here and now, satisfied, and fully alive. J.C.G. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About the Author
Charlotte Joko Beck is a renowned Zen teacher, and founder of the Zen Center in San Diego, which she ran for more than two decades. In the 1960s she studied and trained with Soen Nakagawa Roshi, who she considers her teacher. Two years ago she moved to Prescott, Arizona and founded the Zen Center of Prescott where she currently resides and teaches. She is the author of two books: Everyday Zen: Love and Work (HarperCollins, 1989) and Nothing Special: Living Zen (HarperCollins, 1994). Both books have been translated into more than a half dozen languages.

Customer Reviews

More insight into life "as it is"...
This is another insightful gem by one of the most poetically frank teachers America has to offer. If you are looking for a "feel good" alternative to your life's problems, this is not for you. If you are looking to "fix" your life, this is not for you.

If you are open to understanding your daily struggles, facing them with brutal honesty moment by moment and willing to sit with them, not run from them, this might be a good start. One reviewer below mentioned she read a book by her six months ago and wanted more of that here. This is exactly what you should NOT expect when approaching Joko Beck and this CD. In fact, it's that "expectation" that contradicts her entire teachings! The idea here is to open yourself to insight. Insight into life as we struggle upstream.

After reading and listening to Joko's work we slowly unfold (if also sitting) and we discover that we no longer need to "struggle" against the stream. We can open up to it now, as it washes over us and experience what lessons it has to offer. That is what you will get a glimpse of with this CD and her other books. But, only a glimpse. As Joko explains in all of her work, you must practice every day in order to truly experience what life has to offer us, moment by moment.

Joko's work is a beautiful reminder and invitation to open yourself to life. I for one have humbly accepted her offer and owe her my deepest gratitude. Give this CD a whirl and do not forget to pick up her two quintessential books on practice, Nothing Special & Everyday Zen.

Something Special: Living Zen
If you have a practice or are trying to start one, don't pass this up.
The first 10 minutes of the first talk provides all the instruction you need for at least your first few years of practice.
Thank you Joko, you're a gift!

As good as the books
The compassion and clear message found in Nothing Special & Everyday Zen comes through in these CDs. There are differences. The books are organized into themes. The CDs are a set of talks with some Q&A, so you can hear her think and how she interacts with her students without editing. The books have more metaphors, like ice cubes and containers. The talks are more direct.

There are three and a half-hours of talks and Q&A. The questions were hard to hear in a car, but she is always easy to hear. Section titles:

CD 1. Concentration, Reactive emotion-thought, Core beliefs, False emotion and true emotion, Being zero, Elegance is refusal, Radiance, Our changing perception of radiance

CD 2. The simplicity of practice, The necessity of persistence, Life as beautiful and fierce, The no-self, Living in stillness, The important questions, The absolute and relative, True practice never stops, The importance of the vow, Patience

CD 3. Being in the box, Getting out of the box, Rapidly moving out of the box, Life as it is, Embracing failure, Developing steadiness, Being in practice for a lifetime, The three easy steps of practice, The key to freedom.