Product Description

This funny, engaging guide to the basics of Buddhist meditation presents the idea that people are not human beings trying to be spiritual, but spiritual beings trying to be human. That is, instead of striving toward an ideal image of ourselves, people might aim simply to see more clearly what being human is all about, including what impels striving.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #473977 in Books
• Published on: 1995-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Review
Cheri Huber tells it like it is. I count her among the Zen teachers whose writing I recommend.
Dai-En Bennage
Resident Senior Priest, Mt. Equity Zendo
Translator of Abbess Aoyama Roshi's Zen Seeds
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From the Back Cover
Spiritual/Psychology/Zen Buddhism

Trying To Be Human is about discovering that we already are everything we yearn for.

Cheri Huber tells it like it is. I count her among the Zen teachers whose writing I recommend. --Dai-En Bennage, Resident Senior Priest, Mt. Equity Zendo, Translator of Abbess Aoyama Roshi's Zen Seeds

About the Author
Cheri Huber is the author of 19 books, including There Is Nothing Wrong with You, When You're Falling, Dive,and Time-Out for Parents. She founded the Mountain View Zen Center in Mountain View, California, and the Zen Monastery Practice Center in Murphys, California, and teaches in both communities. She travels widely and often, leading workshops and retreats around the United States and abroad, most recently in Costa Rica and Italy. She founded Living Compassion in 2003, a nonprofit group comprised of There Is Nothing Wrong With You Retreats (based on the book); Global Community for Peace: The Assisi Peace Project; The Africa Vulnerable Children Project; and Open Air Talk Radio, her weekly call-in radio show originating from Stanford University. She lives in Murphys, California.

Customer Reviews

Straight talk about practice for the non-specialist
It might seem easy, putting together a collection of short pieces (many from extemporaneous talks) on dharma practice in terms applicable to modern non-Buddhists who don't know "satori" from Toyota.

But it isn't easy at all. Cheri Huber has a talent for concise, clear demonstrations of practicing in ordinary life and how to make room for daily meditation practice. Instead of ancient Buddhist teachings, she is more likely to reach to common sense and a warm, keen feeling for psychology. Her style as a Zen teacher is refreshingly ordinary, modest, and worldly. She is loath to offer prescriptions, and has a sharp eye for how spiritual practice may be co-opted by egotistical concerns.

Editor Sara Jenkins has bravely allowed these talks to stand without explanation or qualification, respecting the power of a short paragraph over a lengthy discourse. The book is organized into categories that almost seem irrelevant as one is tempted to simply dip into the book!, opening at random and letting one talk at a time be enough for the day.