About this item
A warm-hearted guide to Buddhist practice for those ready to contend with the reality that enlightenment - the realization of non-self - can't be achieved by the self.A well-known spiritual saying goes, "Enlightenment is an accident. But we can make ourselves more accident-prone." As an authentic American Zen takes shape, enlightenment continues to be misunderstood as a project to be completed, a goal to be achieved, or a prize to be awarded. Tim Burkett's new book unhooks enlightenment from the hot air balloon of ego and brings it back down to earth. Drawing on stories of his first teacher, the Zen master Shunryu Suzuki (author of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind) , and Burkett's decades of practice and teaching, he reveals how to live in the world with a deep joy that comes from embracing the work and play of this very moment.
About the Author
Tim began Zen practice in 1964 with his first teacher, Suzuki Roshi. He was ordained as a Zen priest in 1978 by Katagiri Roshi, who was Suzuki's assistant prior to Suzuki's death. Tim has been guiding teacher at the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center, founded by Katagiri Roshi, for the last 15 years. He is also a psychologist and retired CEO of People Incorporated, a large non-profit agency that supports people in need of mental health support.
In his first book, Nothing Holy About It, Tim intersperses stories about his teachers with his own guidance about living a life unburdened by limiting ideas and concepts.
In his second book, Zen in the Age of Anxiety: Wisdom for our Modern Lives, he helps the reader do two things: 1) identify the causes of mental and emotional anxiety epidemic in today's world; 2) walk the path of a peaceful heart, a path that leads though the center of the anxiety we're desperate to escape.
