Zen Sourcebook

I've had this book called Zen Sourcebook around the house awhile. It's an anthology of writings by past zen masters from China, Japan and Korea. Bodhidharma is represented, along with such luminaries as Huang-po, Lin-chi, Layman P'ang, Dōgen and Bankei.

If you're going to be a book-taught loner Buddhist like I am, these writings from the past seem much more helpful than most of the contemporary stuff.

And when the stresses of everyday life get to be a bit much, it's comforting to put some Tibetan singing bowl music on the stereo and relax with wisdom that has withstood the test of time. I guess I could try studying zen with Marvin Gaye in the background, but I don't think I'd get the same result.

Zen Sourcebook seems like a very handy overview of traditional zen teaching, and a pleasant antidote to all the 'who fucked whom' controversy that currently has so many people's attention. I haven't mentioned anything else about that, because it's not my story, but the stuff is still churning along.