Suggested Reading

Booklist, by topic/type then author

Contemporary Zen Buddhist Teachers & Writers:

Charlotte Joko Beck

One of the first women to teach Zen in America, Charlotte Joko Back received dharma transmission from Taizan Maezumi (Zen Center Los Angeles). She established the Zen Center of San Diego and is credited with pioneering a more pragmatic, humanistic, day-to-day approach to Zen practice, eschewing monastic formalities.

Everyday Zen is a collection of sesshin talks that take Zen practice "off the cushion" into every moment of life.

Nothing Special: Living Zen contains pragmatic wisdom on struggle, sacrifice, emotions, desires, change, awareness, freedom, separation and connection, revealing that “nothing’s special” means everything is.

Pema Chödrön

An American Tibetan Buddhist who is a disciple of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Pema Chödrön is an ordained nun and former teacher/abbess of Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia, Canada. Chödrön’s best-selling books offer advice that is rooted in Buddhist teachings and addresses contemporary (but age-old) fears, anger, loss, and emotional confusion.

Living Beautifully: With Uncertainty and Change

Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

James Ishmael Ford

An American Zen priest and Unitarian Universalist minister, James Ishmael Ford studied with Mel Weitsman Roshi at the Berkeley Zen Center, Jiyu Kennett Roshi, and John Tarrant Roshi.

If You are Lucky, Your Heart Will Break: Field Notes from a Zen Life is an introduction to Zen practice by way of anecdotes about Ford’s own wide-ranging, diverse explorations and spiritual practice.

Gil Fronsdal

Fronsdal is a Theravada and Soto Zen monk, teacher, author, and translator, and founder of the Insight Meditation Centers in California.

Steps to Liberation: The Buddha’s Eightfold Path is a guide not only to understanding but also to embodying the Eightfold Path of the Buddha Way — appropriate view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration — in the everyday world.

Steve Hagen

Steve Hagen is the founder and head teacher of the Dharma Field Zen Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and a Dharma heir of Dainin Katagiri Roshi.

Buddhism Plain and Simple

Dainin Katagiri

Born in Osaka, Japan, in 1928, Dainin Katagiri came to the Zenshuji Sotao Zen Mission in Los Angeles, later moving to the San Francisco Zen Center where he assisted Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. In 1972 he became the founding abbot of the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center in Minneapolis, MN.

Returning to Silence: Zen Practice in Daily Life

You Have to Say Something: Manifesting Zen Insight

Thích Nhất Hạnh

Thích Nhất Hạnh, the Vietnamese Thien Buddhist monk, peace activist, and author is the founder of Plum Village Monastery in southwest France, his home after being exiled from Vietnam for his protests during the war. Among his vast contributions, he coined the term ‘engaged Buddhism’ and established The Order of Interbeing. Nhat Hahn was a renowned international spiritual leader, often called “the father of mindfulness.”

No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering

Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

Sebene Selassie

Born in Ethiopia, raised in the U.S., and educated in Canada where she studied Buddhism and earned a B.A. in Comparative Religions, Sebene Selassie is a well-known meditation teacher (Insight Meditation), speaker, coach, and author.

You Belong: A Call to Connection, Selassie’s debut book (2020) ,explores all the ways we are deluded about being separate or “different” (and thus suffer) and urges us to reclaim connection, harmony, unity, belonging. “To belong is to experience joy in any moment.... To belong is also to acknowledge injustice, reckon with history, and face our own shadows.”

Brad Warner

An ordained Zen priest, punk rock bassist, blogger, documentarian, and founder of Angel City Zen Center in Echo Park, Los Angeles, Brad Warner teaches in the tradition of his teacher Gudo Nishijima and Dogen. His books are entertaining, down-to-earth, autobiographical and accessible.

Don't Be a Jerk: And Other Practical Advice from Dogen, Japan's Greatest Zen Master

Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies & the Truth About Reality — Tricycle: The Buddhist Review said "Hardcore Zen is Be Here Now for now."

Formal Practice:

*Compilations

The Art of Just Sitting: Esssential Writings on the Zen Practice of Shikantaza ends with an appendix of a half dozen “Foundational Texts” on zazen, from the Buddhist sutras to Bodhidharma and the early Zen masters. The bulk of it comprises some 22 commentaries on the practice of zazen, and on the appended texts, from Dogen’s age to our own, including by some of the authors on this list. Covers everything from basic physical posture, setting, and mental posture to very advanced observations on no-self, non-separation, emptiness, and buddha-nature.

The Eightfold Path (ed. Jikyo Cheryl Wolfer) This 2016 collection of essays covers the Four Noble Truths and each facet of the Eightfold Path. As a whole, it describes how to “align our action with our understanding” in the arenas of wisdom, meditation, and ethics.

Reb Anderson

A student of Shunryu Suzuki, Reb Anderson is a senior dharma teacher in San Francisco.

Being Upright: Zen Meditation and the Bodhisattva Precepts introduces the fundamental ethical precepts of Zen Buddhist practice by focusing on the Sixteen Great Bodhisattva Precepts of the bodhisattva initiation ceremony. Anderson leavens subtle analysis with anecdotes about his studies with Suzuki Roshi and with situation-based examples that demonstrate the complexity of moral judgments and challenges to “staying upright.”

Steve Hagen

(See above: Contemporary Zen Buddhist Teachers & Writers)

Meditation Now or Never

Taizan Maezumi

Taizan Maezumi (1931- 1995) arrived in Los Angeles in 1956 to serve in the Sōtō Zen Mission. He was dharma successor to three teachers (one of them his father, of the White Plum Asanga lineage) and uniquely combined the Rinzai school’s use of koans and the Sōtō school’s emphasis on shikantaza (just sitting) in his teachings. He was the founding abbot of the Zen Center of Los Angeles (ZCLA) and Zen Mountain Center in Idyllwild, California. Maezumi Roshi gave Buddhist precepts to more than 500 practitioners. His legacy includes many of today’s leading teachers and founders of other Zen centers.

On Zen Practice: Body, Breath, and Mind is a collection of dharma talks and commentaries on classic Zen Buddhist texts by Maezumi Roshi and his students/successors, edited by Maezumi Roshi and Bernie Glassman Roshi, his dharma heir, and later revised by students and dharma teachers Wendy Egyoku Nakao and John Daishin Buksbazen.

Thích Nhất Hạnh

(See above: Contemporary Zen Buddhist Teachers & Writers)

The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation

The Other Shore: A New Translation of the Heart Sutra with Commentaries

Kobun Chino Otogawa

Soto Zen priest Kōbun Otogawa came to California from Japan in the 1960s. Throughout his life, he embraced a spontaneous, down-to-earth practice of Zen, grounded in acceptance and present mindfulness.

Embracing Mind gathers a wide-ranging selection of materials by Otogawa on topics from the Buddhist precepts to formal practice, dharma transmission, enlightenment, and more.

Shohaku Okamura

Shohaku Okamura, a Sōtō Zen priest and Dharma successor of Kosho Uchiyama Roshi, is former director of the Sōtō Zen Buddhism International Center in San Francisco and the founding teacher of the Sanshin Zen Community, based in Bloomington, Indiana, where he lives with his family.

Living By Vow: A Practical Introduction to Eight Essential Chants and Texts explores Zen’s rich tradition of chanted liturgy and the powerful ways that such chants support meditation, expressing and helping us truly uphold our heartfelt vows.

Seung Sahn

Zen Master Seung Sahn moved from Korea to the U.S. in 1972. He helped create several Zen centers in multiple countries and founded the Kwan Um school of Zen in 1983.

Only Don’t Know is a collection of excerpts from letters sent by Seung Sahn to students and others who wrote to him with questions about Zen practice. The Zen Master’s responses are open, joyful, often funny, and directly to the point.

The Compass of Zen provides an insightful, energetic, and broad overview of the many styles and schools of Buddhist practice. Newcomers to Zen will find it accessible and often entertaining. Experienced practitioners will find plenty of food for thought and practice.

Sunryu Suzuki

Ordained as a novice monk at age 13, Sunryu Suzuki devoted himself to Zen studies and became abbot of a monastery in Japan by age 25. His long-held desire to introduce Zen to Americans was fulfilled when he came to San Francisco in 1959. Students eagerly attended his talks, which soon included meditation sessions. Eventually, the community that practiced zazen together became the San Francisco Zen Center. Suzuki also founded the first Zen Buddhist monastery outside Asia, the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in Northern CA.

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind is a collection of short talks by the Sōtō Zen teacher who popularized Zen practice in North America. This book is enigmatic, provocative, and endlessly inviting.

Not Always So is a slim volume of talks by Suzuki Roshi on shikantaza, emptiness, Zen practice, and enlightenment. Rather than a set of instructions, it’s more a collection of notes from the Buddha path, better enabling us to navigate it ourselves.

Kosho Uchiyama

A Sōtō priest, origami master, and abbot of Antai-ji near Kyoto, Japan, Kosho Uchiyama was the author of more than twenty books on Zen and is venerated by generations of practitioners and scholars who acknowledge his words for their clarity and powerful insight.

Opening the Hand of Thought: Foundations of Zen Buddhist Practice shines perhaps the most direct light on how to practice and why, with chapters on The Reality of Zazen, Zazen and the True Self, Living Wide Awake, and The Wayseeker. A 2004 edition was translated and edited by three of Uchiyama’s students: Tom Wright, Jisho Warner, and Shohaku Okumura.

Science of Zen:

James H. Austin

Dr. Austin is both an experienced neuroscientist and long-time Zen practitioner. His books explore how (and why) Zen practice makes us more intuitive, open, selfless, and compassionate, as well as the implications of these insights for our understanding of consciousness.

Selfless Insight: Zen and the Meditative Transformations of Consciousness is a textbook. It assumes the reader has at least a college-level introduction to basic cognitive neuroscience, and so will understand terms such as “percept,” “event-related potentials”, and “medial frontoparietal region” without explanation. If that’s you, this book is a fascinating dive into what’s going on inside our skulls when we sit.

Secular & Skeptical Approaches to Buddhism:

Stephen Batchelor

Originally from England, Stephen Batchelor spent 8 years as a monk in the Tibetan tradition before converting to Son (Zen) Buddhism in South Korea. “The dharma, I realised, was not found only in sacred texts and philosophy but was all around me: in the temple architecture, scroll paintings, calligraphy, poetry, even the way people drank tea and admired nature.”

Buddhism without Beliefs presents Zen as a practice, interspersing meditation exercises with a secular “existential… agnostic” approach to the dharma.

C. Pierce Salguero

Salguero is a scholar of Buddhism who is not a practitioner. His books offer insights into the history and practice of Buddhism for both non-Buddhists and new practitioners looking for a relatable text from a critical/skeptical point of view.

Buddhism: A Guide to the 20 Most Important Buddhist Ideas for the Curious and Skeptical provides a compact introduction to some of the most foundational concepts in Buddhism and how they play out in various traditions. A great place for beginners raised in the Western academic tradition to dip a toe into the world of Buddhist thought and practice.

Sutras, Commentaries, & Pre-Modern Masters:

*Compilations

The Diamond Sutra & the Sutra of Hui-neng (tr. A.F. Price & Wong Mou-lam) The 4th century Diamond Sutra is undoubtedly among the most fundamental texts of Buddhism, “cutting away” dualistic thought and attachments. The 7th century Platform Sutra is a foundational Zen commentary by early Chinese master Hui-neng.

Boshan

The Chinese master Boshan lived ca. 1600 CE and taught at several monasteries, eventually settling at Mount Bo.

Great Doubt: Practicing Zen in the World (translated by Jeff Shore) stresses the need for ignorance, doubt, and healthy skepticism as a starting point for Zen practice. There can be no trust where there has been no doubt.

Dogen

Japanese Zen master and prolific writer Eihei Dogen founded the Soto school in the 13th century.. As a young monk he studied in China and returned with a revised approach to Buddhist practice centered around shikantaza. His Eihi-ji monastery remains the seat of Soto Zen Buddhism, currently the largest religious denomination in Japan.

The Essential Dogen (ed. Kazuaki Tanahashi & Peter Levitt): When you feel ready to dive into Dogen, this collection of short pieces on everything from sitting practice to karma, enlightenment, compassion, “wisdom beyond wisdom”, the precepts, time and space, lay practice, and more is as good a diving-off spot as you’ll find. Can’t promise you’ll “get” everything right off the bat, but the puzzles reward pursuit.

Moon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dogen (ed. Kazuaki Tanahashi): There’s a good deal of overlap between this volume and The Essential Dogen, but the focus is somewhat more monkish, although the accompanying background materials make the obscure bits easier to grasp.

Nagarjuna

Not much is known about Nagarjuna, founder of the Middle Way school of Buddhism, a seminal Mahayana practitioner who lived sometime around 200 CE in central India, whose writing illuminates sunyata (emptiness), the inextricability of all things, and the “two truths” of absolute and conventional views.

Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way (or MMK) (tr. Gudo Wafu Nishijima, ed. Brad Warner) attempts to re-translate Nagarjuna’s ancient Sanskrit primer on emptiness and no-self into a contemporary English, and to illuminate its terse aphorisms with heavily Dogen-influenced commentary.

Gudō Wafu Nishijima

Japanese Zen teacher, priest, author, and translator Gudō Nishijima synthesized the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths with Dogen’s Shōbōgenzō his framework of “three philosophies, one reality”.

To Meet the Real Dragon collects 17 talks by Gudō, primarily viewing the Buddha Way through the lens of Dogen, together with an appendix on how to sit zazen.

Three Philosophies and One Reality & NKH Radio Talks comprises seven short talks presenting his synthesis of Shōbōgenzō and the Four Noble Truths, together with 3 related talks originally presented on NHK Radio.

Shohaku Okamura

(See above: Formal Practice)

Realizing Genjokoan is subtitled “the key to Dogen’s Shobozenzo” and is an excellent distillation of Dogen’s writings on Zen.

Red Pine

Bill “Red Pine” Porter, an Idahoan now living in Washington State by way of China, is a multi-award winning translator of Chinese Buddhist literature into English.

The Heart Sutra is an exhuberantly geeky and heartfelt dive deep into the history and meaning of possibly the most widely chanted sutra in Buddhism.

Walpola Rahula

Walpola Rahula was a Sri Lankan Buddhist monk and scholar. In 1964, he became the Professor of History and Religions at Northwestern University, becoming the first bhikkhu to hold a professorial chair in the Western world. He also held positions in other American and European universities. He wrote in English, French, and Sinhala.

What the Buddha Taught is a concise and accessible overview of Buddha's teachings. Rahula gives his personal interpretation of what he regards to be Buddhism's essential teachings, including the Four Noble Truths, the Buddhist mind, and the Noble Eightfold Path.

Paul Reps

Paul Reps was an American artist, poet, and author who is considered one of America’s first haiku poets. Many of his books contain artwork influenced by Zen Buddhist practice and Asian aesthetics.

Zen Flesh, Zen Bones is a collection of traditional Zen stories and koans, which may appear rather opaque at first, but which reveal more and more as practice deepens and as one re-reads them.

Kōdō Sawaki

The early 20th century Japanese monk Kodo Sawaki became famous as the “homeless monk” (he opted to have no home temple) and is known mostly through his students and dharma heirs such as Kosho Uchiyama, Gudo Wafu Nishijima, Taisen Deshimaru, and Shohaku Okumura who carried on his teachings of shikantaza (just sitting) and no-gain.

Commentary on the Song of Awakening is a wide-ranging commentary on Yōka Daishi’s 8th century poem on Zen practice and the contrast of dharma-nature and buddha-nature.

Sunryu Suzuki

(See above: Formal Practice)

Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness: Zen Talks on the Sandokai is a series of talks given by Suzuki Roshi on the 9th century Zen poem Sandokia, including exchanges with his listening students, a deep and often funny exploration of non-duality in daily living.