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The Compass of Zen (Shambhala Dragon Editions) Paperback – Unabridged, October 28, 1997
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In his many years of teaching throughout the world, the Korean-born Zen Master Seung Sahn has become known for his ability to cut to the heart of Buddhist teaching in a way that is strikingly clear, yet free of esoteric and academic language. In this book, based largely on his talks, he presents the basic teachings of Buddhism and Zen in a way that is wonderfully accessible for beginners—yet so rich with stories, insights, and personal experiences that long-time meditation students will also find it a source of inspiration and a resource for study.
- Print length416 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherShambhala
- Publication dateOctober 28, 1997
- Dimensions5.99 x 1.08 x 9 inches
- ISBN-109781570623295
- ISBN-13978-1570623295
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Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"Like two arrows meeting in the air, this extraordinary book meets the mind point. Please relax and enjoy it."—Joan Halifax, author of The Fruitful Darkness
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
First attain enlightenment, then instruct all beings.
Many centuries ago, the Greek philosopher Socrates used to walk through the streets and marketplaces of Athens, teaching his students. He would say to them, "You must understand yourself! You must understand yourself! You must understand yourself." Then one day a student said, "Sir, you always say we must understand ourselves. But do you understand your self?"
"No, I don't know myself," Socrates replied. "But I understand this 'don't know.'" This is very interesting teaching. Buddhist practice points at the same experience, because most human beings pass through their lives without the slightest sense of what they are.
We understand many things about this world, but we don't understand ourselves. So why do human beings come into this world? Why do we live in this world? For love? For money? For respect or fame? Do you live for your wife, husband, or children? Why do you live in this world? If someone asked you these questions, you might very well answer, "I live for my children. I live to earn enough money for them, or maybe just to have a good life." Most people think like this. They live only for their family, for some fleeting social respectability, perhaps to enjoy art or to get some powerful position. Everyone wants to have a good situation for themselves. If you look at this world very closely, it is easy to see that most people eat and sleep and live merely for their own personal happiness. Yet these things are not the real purpose of human beings' life. They are just temporary means for living in the world. If human beings cannot find out who they are, how can they ever be truly happy? The Buddha came from a royal family in India some twenty-five hundred years ago. He was a prince, named Siddhartha Gautama. He had a very good situation. In the palace he had everything he wanted: good food, good clothes, many beautiful women, a high seat, and a very good position. He was the son of the king, and someday he would inherit a powerful kingdom. That's very wonderful! But inside, Siddhartha was very unhappy, because he could not understand who he was. He could not understand life or death. He was deeply saddened that all beings must eventually get sick, grow old, and die. This gave him a big question about his own nature and the nature of all beings. "What am I? I don't know. . . ." At that time in India, the Brahmin religion of Hinduism was followed by nearly everyone. But Brahmanism could not give the young prince the correct answer to his burning question. So he was even more unhappy. "Why do human beings come into this world? Why do we eat every day? What am I?" He ate food, but there was no taste. Heard music, but it gave him no pleasure. The beautiful palace became like a prison.
One night, Siddhartha left the palace. He left his family, his beautiful wife, and his infant child, cut off all his hair, and became a monk. Then he went to the mountains. For six years he practiced very, very hard. "What am I? Don't know . . ." He courageously kept this question with one-pointed determination. Then one morning, while sitting in meditation under the Bodhi tree, he saw the morning star in the eastern sky. At that moment--BOOM!--Siddhartha and this star completely became one. He realized his true substance. He realized that his mind was the universe--infinite in time and space--and the whole universe was nothing other than his own mind. He realized there is no life and no death. Nothing ever comes or goes. We say that he woke up and attained his true nature. He completely attained human consciousness: he saw that when ignorance appears, mind appears. When mind appears, desire appears. When any kind of desire appears, life and death, coming and going, happiness and sadness all appear. By completely keeping a don't-know mind one hundred percent--only go straight, don't know--the Buddha saw how to completely stop this endless cycle. He attained complete liberation from the eternal round of birth and death in which all beings trap themselves. He completely attained his correct way, he attained truth, and he attained the correct kind of life he should lead. The name for that is enlightenment. But this truth that the Buddha attained was a very high-class realization. How could he make it function to help this suffering world? When he got enlightenment, the Buddha perceived all sentient beings being born, suffering, and dying; being born again, suffering, and dying; being born, again suffering, and again dying in an endless round of torment. He saw billions upon billions of beings caught in the beginningless cycle of birth, old age, sickness, and death, wandering around and around and around and around, nonstop, only following their desire, anger, and ignorance. The name for this is samsara. "I want this. I want that. I like this. I don't like that." When he attained enlightenment, the Buddha perceived every sentient being in a terrible state of suffering. It was a condition to which they had become so accustomed that it seemed normal. How would anyone ever believe what he had seen? "How can I teach this to other people?" he thought. It was like a man with a very high-class Ph.D. trying to teach little children what he'd learned: how would they ever understand? Sentient beings were so controlled by their desire minds, and so attached to their suffering way, he wondered if anyone would ever connect with this teaching. Sutras say that for several moments the Buddha doubted whether he should attempt to teach this. Perhaps people would have laughed at him, or worse, killed him for his heretical insight. The Buddha saw all this too. He could have stayed in this nirvana, his enlightenment, a state of infinite stillness and bliss, and never come out.
But the Buddha had profound compassion for sentient beings. He got up from his seat under the Bodhi tree, he left the stillness and bliss of nirvana, and he went into the contentious cities and towns to teach human beings. He left his "good situation." He did not attach to stillness and quiet. He did not attach to his bliss. He did not stay in nirvana, a state where there is no suffering or life or death. The Buddha returned to the noisy, fractious world to save all beings from suffering by showing them that it was possible to completely attain their own original nature, just as he had done. His enlightenment experience was not for him alone. That is a very important point. The characters for that are dae ja, dae bi: Great Love and Great Compassion. The Buddha attained enlightenment, which means that he attained his great function and the function of all beings. This was the beginning of Buddhism in this world.
Product details
- ASIN : 1570623295
- Publisher : Shambhala; First Edition (October 28, 1997)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 416 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9781570623295
- ISBN-13 : 978-1570623295
- Item Weight : 1.27 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.99 x 1.08 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #360,447 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #628 in Philosophy Movements (Books)
- #819 in Other Eastern Religions & Sacred Texts (Books)
- #2,727 in Christian Self Help
- Customer Reviews:
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Nowhere does this book dwell on emotion (other than to indicate that suffering is primarily emotional) though most people who carefully observe their experience will acknowledge that emotion is the key aspect of our existence, far more vital, moving and dominant than intellectual understanding. Nor does the book draw back the curtain of the 4 Noble truths to reveal the depth and majesty of our experience. Look up at the sky some moonless night, away from the cities, and what do you see? Do you stand there and think, well, the Universe is 13.5 billion years old, and expanding to a possibly limitless extent over the next trillion years? That most of those lights in the sky are stars, whose light is generated by fusion reactions, of varying sizes and intensities?
Or do you look up and marvel at the wonder and beauty of it all? Do you feel drawn out of yourself and a part of this great Whole which is beyond our comprehension and apprehension? Do you feel moved?
I feel awe when I behold this fantastic spectacle. Dead statistics on its size do not move me the way the panorama itself does. This, to me, is the failing of The Compass of Zen. It is like studying a syllogism. "If a triangle is right-angled, then the sum of the squares of two sides equals the square of the hypotenuse." That's interesting; it's probably worth knowing. But is it the meaning of my life? No, and neither is the dead logic traced across many millennia. In a way our contemporary understanding of Buddhism is very similar to Adam Smith's phrase "The Invisible Hand." It is something from the past, something that exerts a force on contemporary thought, but it is not the whole of that thought, nor even that portion of thought which focuses on the topic Adam Smith studied: economics. Nor is Buddhist epistemology the whole of current thinking on the nature of existence, much less on the purpose (if any) of our lives.
I recommend the reader look instead at The Feeling Buddha, by Brazier.
This book covers all the angles. It gives you history, examples and the rest. But mostly, it gives you a compass to make sure that you are on the right track. After reading a chapter or three on a regular basis, you will succumb to the basic simpleness of the message and it will start to slowly dawn on you. Little by little, how simple things can really be, if you just "Don't know".
The author is a Zen master from Korea, and he writes with a direct, light-hearted style that is clear and not at all intimidating or overwhelming. I found myself very drawn to what he was offering.
The book is a transcription of his many Dharma talks, so the text is sometimes a bit choppy. However, that doesn't detract from how well the book is put together. It will change the way you see the world and maybe how you live your life.
Don't let this book serve as your Zen practice. When you're done reading it start sitting and bowing right away.
Top reviews from other countries
If you read this book, you should be able to use it as a compass to make sure you head in the right direction at all times and don't get sidetracked by the peculiarities of any one way of teaching.
The only negative point I have about this book is the introduction (or possibly the foreword, I can't remember which at the moment); apparently written by Seung Sahn himself, it seems strangely out of character with the rest of this book and his other teachings. So I would skip the intro and jump into the book.
I would also recommend his other books, and if you are particularly interested in Zen practice and teaching, then Dropping Ashes on the Buddha shows how the compass is used in practice, and is also a very fun read into the bargain.
Update 10 years on:
The Compass was really the last book I read on self-help, Buddhism, philosophy etc. Since then I haven't had any questions that weren't already answered. I have actually forgotten most of what is in the book, but it doesn't matter - my compass was set back then and it still points me in the right direction now.
Now that Seung Sahn has passed on, nowhere else can be found so directly communicated the living evidence of the fullness, vitality and playfulness of genuine Zen spirit.