Living Everyday Zen

by Charlotte Joko Beck

Beyond the meditation cushion, where do you ultimately find the profound clarity, presence, and simple joy of Zen? "Where it has always been--in everyday life," teaches Charlotte Joko Beck, "whether it's raising our kids, working in the office, or even cleaning the house." On Living Everyday Zen, this seminal voice in American Zen shares some of her hallmark teachings and insights from nearly 50 years of practice. Beck's ability to make the abstract concrete and accessible for anyone who engages in the practice distinguishes her from most other Zen teachers. Join her to explore: Liberating your "real" self from the conditioned "little" self with its unconscious, self-limiting beliefsHow to get past your "if onlies" to discover that real fulfillment is in this very momentPatience, persistence, and courage: the keys to freedomThe surprising relationship between healing and thoughtYour radiant life energy and how to awaken its flowBare bones simplicity. Tart common sense. That's the trademark style of Charlotte Joko Beck--offered here on Living Everyday Zen to help you realize the fruits of your sitting practice in every aspect of your daily life.

Genres: Buddhism, Spirituality, Zen, Nonfiction, Religion, Psychology

Audio CD

First published March 1, 2008

About the author

Charlotte Joko Beck was an American Zen teacher and the author of the books Everyday Zen: Love and Work and Nothing Special: Living Zen.

Reviews

[Martyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

The message of this audio book could be summed up as "Zen practice is important. I'm not sure what the results will be. Hope it works out for you." And all this delivered in a strangely patronizing tone (she is actually quite rude to some of the students on here, who have questions for her).

I understand that a book about Zen is an oxymoron at best but usually there is something to digest; this though was rambling and pointless. My advice would be to edit out all the pauses and irrelevancies and get it down to a tight disc and a half (from three) - then the message would at least be sharper.

[Jim Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A practical and clear-eyed Western explanation and exploration of the key themes of Zen Buddhism by the late American Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck.

Essentially, she is saying Zen is about realising our full humanity and that means stopping trying to separate ourselves from the world around us, experiencing fully our pain and our joy without the endless rationalisations and ruminations we are subject to.

"Sadly enough, some of us die without having lived, because we're so obsessed with trying to avoid being hurt," is how she sums up Zen for Western audiences. “We have to experience ourselves as we are, not the way we think we should be.”

"When something really annoys us, irritates us, troubles us, we start to think. We worry, we drag up everything we can think of, and we think and think because that's what we believe solves life's problems. In fact, what solves life's problems is simply to experience trhe difficulty that's going on and then to act out of that."

As she says, it's simple. But that doesn't make it easy.

[Frank · Rating 2 out of 5]

I took this up expecting to read something of Buddhism as a practice. What I found instead was a self-help book (which is something not belonging to my register) in the form of a series of lectures. I continued nonetheless. and found it had some worthy insights. But the focus was on motivating a tiresome practice, and the lecturer tended to invoke that motivation by repetition, which makes for poor reading.

[Andy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first few chapters are interesting, after that it only repeats over and over again, so it's really pointless to read the whole book.

[David Torné · Rating 5 out of 5]

La millor explicació del que és la pràctica zen i quin paper juga la meditació en ella

[Charles Sisson · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are some interesting ideas in very accessible language in this book.