Do Not Try to Become a Buddha
In this collection of short essays, Irish Soto Zen priest Myozan Ian Kilroy describes how he came to practice Zen, introduces some basics of Zen philosophy, and recalls the challenges of establishing a Zen Buddhist community in Catholic-dominated Ireland. Along the way, he explores the rituals and practices that Zen brings to everyday life, from holidays to weddings to birth ceremonies to funerals. A former journalist, Rev. Myozan’s clear yet entertaining storytelling style paints a clear picture of how Zen has adapted to the culture and traditions of Ireland.
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Three Rock Sonnets
Three Rock Sonnets is a series of 108 poems written by Soto Zen Buddhist priest Myozan Kodo. Ranging from intimate lyrics drawing on family life to meditations on the ineffable mystery of things, these poems belong to that ancient Zen tradition of contemplating the unutterable in verse. Including elegies for the poets Seamus Heaney and Allen Ginsberg, Three Rock Sonnets is a collection with electric concerns: from the discovery of the Higgs Boson at CERN, to the ancient riddles or koans of the Zen Buddhist tradition. In a way, these 108 poems are a devotional act. They are prostrations to the mystery that lies at the heart of reality itself, and to the great ‘Triple Gem’ of Buddhism: the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. Three Rock Sonnets is a collection that keeps faith with reality as we find it, despite the trials and challenges that face us, individually and collectively, at this moment in our shared destiny.
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Songs from the Denkoroku
Songs from the Denkoroku is a series of poems inspired by Zen Master Keizan’s Record of Transmitting the Light, a classic of Zen Buddhist literature. Each poem in the sequence is based on the enlightenment experience of the historical Buddha, onwards through the successive generations of Zen teachers, up to Master Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen Buddhism, and beyond. The writing of these poems was suggested by the author’s Zen teacher, Taigu Turlur, as a preparation for the author’s own Dharma Transmission, as he became the 93rd in the line of succession, a line that stretches back to the Buddha’s original awakening under the Bodhi tree, some 2,500 years ago. The poems are teachings in themselves, capturing the spirit of Zen’s ‘direct pointing to reality’ – a spiritual tradition whose profound teachings awaken us to the true nature of reality, and that reconciles us with our place in it.
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