Zen Buddhism - Shambhala Publications

17/11/2025

You do not want to miss The Buddhist Newsletter!

Today we feature new books, a new podcast, new videos, audiobooks, and two Reader Guides. We hope you like them!
http://shmb.la/Buddhist-news-nov25

05/11/2025

How can we soften our relationship with our own thoughts and find a sense of calm in any room?

In a new episode of the Ten Percent Happier podcast with Dan Harris, author Guo Gu offers gentle, practical guidance on embodied experiencing, relaxation, and the simple power of wonder.

Listen to their conversation here:

Podcast Episode · 10% Happier with Dan Harris · 11/05/2025 · 1h 16m

07/10/2025

Happy Publication Day to the 55th anniversary edition of The Tassajara Bread Book by Edward Espe Brown!

You give life to bread. Bread gives life to you.

For over half a century, The Tassajara Bread Book has been a favorite among renowned chefs and novice bakers alike. In this classic book that inspired a generation of Americans to start baking, Edward Espe Brown shows how to make—and enjoy—breads, pastries, muffins, and desserts with simple recipes perfected in the kitchens of America’s oldest Zen monastery.

This special 55th anniversary edition returns to the original’s iconic retro design, with helpful illustrations, a new introduction from the author, and a new foreword by Sourdough author Sarah Owens.

🥖 🍞 Get your copy at the link: https://www.shambhala.com/the-tassajara-bread-book.html

02/09/2025

Happy Publication Day to The Carefree-Ease Record by David Hinton!⁠
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This twelfth-century collection of one hundred kung-ans, or koans, is an essential text for students of Ch’an and Zen Buddhism. These miniature masterpieces of Chinese literature—brief records of enigmatic encounters between teacher and student—offer a unique way of penetrating directly into the essence of Ch’an teaching, and Hinton affords readers an opportunity to experience these koans in English like never before by returning us to the original understanding of its zany storytelling and profound wisdom. Paring away the later commentaries that are usually presented with these koans, Hinton lets the original stories shine on their own, revealing themselves as nothing less than poetic expressions of the awakened mind. A far cry from the transcendence of life-and-death that typifies the traditional Buddhist goal of nirvana, this awakening is distinctly earthy and grounded in the rhythms of nature, shaped by the centuries of Taoist tradition that preceded Ch’an. “Carefree ease,” writes Hinton, “is to move through life with the ‘profound tranquility’ of the Cosmos itself as it unfurls through its perennial transformations.”⁠
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This is the final volume in David Hinton’s momentous project to translate the three classic koan collections of Ch’an Buddhism. The other two volumes are The Blue-Cliff Record and No-Gate Gateway.⁠
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Click the link to order your copy today.⁠
https://www.shambhala.com/the-carefree-ease-record.html
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26/08/2025

"Dogen clearly states that the study of this dharma called the self, if investigated through the lens of the Buddha Way, will lead to awakening. This self, when illuminated, reveals the true relationship between self and other. . . . You can’t label this experience when you are in the middle of it, but we might call it mutual interconnected process continuing without end."

Read an excerpt of Meeting the Myriad Things by Shinshu Roberts in Lion's Roar:

In her new book, Meeting the Myriad Things (Shambhala Publications), American Zen teacher Shinshu Roberts unpacks Dogen’s famed text Genjokoan (“Actualization of Reality”). Here she dives into Dogen’s most quoted teaching.

19/08/2025

Happy Publication Day to Meeting the Myriad Things by Shinshu Roberts!

In the words of Eihei Dōgen, the thirteenth-century Buddhist monk who introduced the Sōtō school of Zen to Japan, “To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things.” Centuries later, these enigmatic words from his seminal “Genjōkōan” (“Actualizing the Fundamental Point”) are still studied in Zen communities the world over.

But what did Dōgen really mean when he encouraged studying the self to forget the self? In this clarifying new commentary, esteemed Zen teacher Shinshu Roberts takes readers on a journey to understand Japan’s great Buddhist philosopher. Roberts applies her deep familiarity with Dōgen’s work to illuminate the text as a unified story in which Dōgen reveals the nondual nature of reality.

In addition to a full translation of Dōgen’s “Genjōkōan,” this book includes the commentary Okikigakishō (“Notes of What Was Heard and Extracted”), written by two of Dōgen’s direct students—the first time an English translation of this highly influential work has appeared in print.

Visit the link to get your copy: https://www.shambhala.com/meeting-the-myriad-things.html

13/08/2025

"Here comes David Hinton with a lively and original rendering of the Carefree-Ease Record, one of the essential ancient koan texts. Hinton looks at the koans as Taoist in origin and sees meditation as an open-hearted wandering through hills, grasses, and moonlight—and through the minds of the old masters. The one hundred stories here are part of a great curriculum for opening the heart and mind. Hinton has given us a noble gift."
—Roshi John Tarrant, author of The Story of the Buddha and Bring Me the Rhinoceros

This is the final volume in David Hinton’s momentous project to translate the three classic koan collections of Ch’an Buddhism. The other two volumes are The Blue-Cliff Record and No-Gate Gateway.

Click the link to learn more about David Hinton’s upcoming book, The Carefree-Ease Record.
https://www.shambhala.com/the-carefree-ease-record.html

25/07/2025

We are sad to share the news that the great Zen author, Aikido master, teacher, translator and friend to many of us here at Shambhala passed away. We put a a remembrance and guide to his works here. We bow deeply to a life of great benefit to many.

https://www.shambhala.com/remembering-john-stevens-1947-2025/

15/07/2025

Happy Publication Day to Blossom Awakening! 🌸 🌿 🌷⁠
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🌸 Blossom Awakening: The Life and Poetry of Wandering Monk Saigyō, translated by Peter Levitt and Kazuaki Tanahashi 🌸⁠
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Pause, breathe, and savor the quiet beauty of Saigyō, one of Japan’s most quintessential poets, in this celebration of nature and Buddhist insight.⁠
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Born in the twelfth century during a time of great political upheaval and warfare, Saigyō made the unusual decision in his youth to resign from his respectable post as a guard to the emperor’s family and pursue a life of Buddhist renunciation, wilderness wandering, and poetry. Over the course of his lifetime, he became one of Japan’s most celebrated poets. Today, his spare poems of spiritual longing and aching identification with the natural world continue to inspire fathomless, ineffable emotion in readers all over the world.⁠
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With 193 poems on 11 themes like the moon, journeys, mountain abodes, love, and the dreamlike world, Blossom Awakening reveals Saigyō as a spiritual seeker who gave his life to the artist’s path. Translators Peter Levitt and Kazuaki Tanahashi present their English renderings with the original Japanese text and offer commentary that illuminates the political, religious, and literary dimensions of Saigyō’s life and work.⁠
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🌷Get your copy: https://www.shambhala.com/blossom-awakening.html

06/07/2025

A guide to the many works by, about, or inspired by the great teacher Joanna Macy published by Shambhala Publications.

24/06/2025

Happy Publication Day to the 20th anniversary edition of At Hell’s Gate by Claude Anshin Thomas!

In this raw and moving memoir, Claude Thomas describes his service in Vietnam, his subsequent emotional collapse, and his remarkable journey toward healing. At Hell's Gate is not only a gripping coming-of-age story but a spiritual travelogue from the horrors of combat to the discovery of inner peace—a journey that inspired Thomas to become a Zen monk and peace activist who travels to war-scarred regions around the world. "Everyone has their Vietnam," Thomas writes. "Everyone has their own experience of violence, calamity, or trauma." With simplicity and power, this expanded edition offers timeless teachings on how we can all find healing, and it presents practical guidance on how mindfulness and compassion can transform our lives.⁠
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Click the link to order your copy today.
https://www.shambhala.com/at-hell-s-gate.html

17/06/2025

Happy Publication Day to In This Body, In This Lifetime by Sozen Nagasawa Roshi, edited by Esho Sudan, and translated by Kogen Czarnik!

Born in 1888, Sozen Nagasawa Roshi was a pioneer of women’s monastic Zen practice in Japan. With a profound wish to become a nun from a young age, she persevered through the extreme social pressures and material difficulties facing women of her generation to become an abbess who trained hundreds of students (primarily women), won equal rights for Japanese nuns, and established organizations to support nuns and laywomen practitioners.

Known for her compassion and fierceness, Nagasawa Roshi used a rigorous koan practice to guide her students to kensho (enlightenment). As more and more students awakened, she asked them to write about their experiences. These stories were initially published in a Japanese magazine and subsequently compiled into a book published in Japan called Collection of Experiences in Zen Practice.

In This Body, In This Lifetime is a selection of 30 of these first-person accounts, exclusively from women and appearing for the first time in English. These stories offer an intimate look into the personal lives and spiritual determination of women who longed to end their suffering and awaken to their true nature despite the obstacles they faced.

A rare glimpse into Zen practice in World War II–era Japan, these inspiring women confront loss, grief, food shortages, air-raid sirens, and a cultural crisis with grit and courage as they persist in their efforts to end their suffering and the suffering of all.

Click the link to order your copy today.
https://www.shambhala.com/in-this-body-in-this-lifetime.html