Nirvana in a Nutshell by Scott Shaw

by Scott Shaw

Meditations to help you stop seeking inner peace—and start experiencing it instead.
 
Nirvana is not to be found in the fulfillment of endless desires, the analysis of profound thoughts, or even hours, days, or years of meditative contemplation. In fact, it is the very act of seeking to obtain happiness, peace, and enlightenment that keeps them out of reach.
 
Nirvana in a Nutshell offers 157 Zen meditations to help you discover what you might be doing (or not doing) in your life to sabotage your goal of reaching inner peace, your own personal paradise. But, as Scott Shaw explains, a desire for Nirvana is like any other desire—a cause of suffering. Let go of the quest and become that which you truly seek and you will find your own Nirvana.

Genres: Spirituality, Meditation, Buddhism

Paperback

First published August 1, 2002

About the author

Born in the filmmaking capital of the world, Hollywood, California, Scott Shaw spent his early youth in South Los Angeles before returning to Hollywood for his adolescence. Shaw began writing poetry and long-form prose at a very young age. As his teenage years dawned he also added songwriting to his creative process.

Shaw was first published by poetry magazine in the 1970s. He continued forward and found an audience for his poetry and biographical literary fiction via journals and small presses from the 1970s into the 1980s.

By the end of the 1980s Scott Shaw had become a mainstay of martial art publications. This was based on his years of training in the Korean martial arts of Hapkido and Taekwondo, which began at the age of six years old. He also found that his writing on Yoga and Zen Buddhism were embraced due to his life-long emersion in mysticism.

Shaw, who has spent many years returning to, living, studying, and teaching in various geographical locations throughout Asia, has maintained his focus on this process and continues to be conduit for bringing Asian understandings to the Western mind. Hand-in-hand with his travels, Shaw emerged as a definitive photographer.

As the 1990s dawned, Shaw expanded his ability of capturing still images onto filmmaking. At this point he developed a new style of filmmaking that he titled, Zen Filmmaking. With Zen Filmmaking as his basis he moved forward and has made numerous films based upon this ideology.

To date, Scott Shaw has witnessed his writings published on a vast array of subjects. He maintains his focus on Eastern mysticism and the martial arts while continuing to break new ground with his works of poetry and literature.

Reviews

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Always fascinating to read books about enlightenment, nirvana, Satori, etc and this one particularly (maybe it’s because I’ve read one too many?) feels like a satire of these types of eastern spirituality books. Lots of words to say you can’t use words to describe this unknowable knowable thing/no-thing.. Which the same coold be said for the Tao te Ching but for some reason that all worked for me.

For example:
#132: “You can not hold onto Satori/because there is nothing to grasp. You can not define Satori/because it is not a thing. Not being anything,/it is the perfect expression of Zen.”


Oof. Most of this did not work for me.


Let me save you all some time:

Learn from your mistakes.
Prepare for the hard times while enjoying the simple beauties when you can.
Be generous and don’t be a jerk.

[Monica Rudio · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading the 157 items about the concepts of Zen, I have decided that I prefer my own brand of zen (lower case z intended). I have no desire to feel the nothingness of Nirvana. I want to feel all of my temporary emotions, no matter how brief or lengthy they are, because life is short and I prefer to spend it in the awareness of my limited days.