Living Zen: A Practical Guide to a Balanced Existence

by Seth Zuihō Segall

Find balance with a hands-on guide to Zen

Zen can be achieved by anyone—and Living Zen will show you the way. This simple and straightforward guide helps you bring the practice of Zen into your life with scenarios inspired by the real lives of people who are using Zen strategies to overcome real challenges.

Whether you're a new or current practitioner, Living Zen provides you with a quick primer on the ideas behind Zen and its spiritual background before showing you how to bring it into your life. Discover a variety of exercises you can use to achieve peace and balance, complete with anecdotal examples of how Zen works in the real world. Whether it's at home, at work, or on the go, find out how you can apply Zen principles to persevere in difficult times.

Living Zen

Get the guidance you need to make Zen a part of your life.

Genres: Buddhism

164 pages, Paperback

Published May 19, 2020

About the author

Seth Zuihō Segall, PhD worked for three decades as a clinical psychologist, teaching at four universities, directing the psychology department of a large urban hospital, and maintaining a private practice. He was ordained as a Zen priest in the White Plum lineage by Daiken Nelson Roshi in 2016. He is a contributing editor for Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, the science writer for the Mindfulness Research Monthly, a teacher at the New York Insight Meditation Center and Pamsula Zen of Westchester, and since 2010 has maintained a blog on Buddhist topics (www.existentialbuddhist.com). His books include Encountering Buddhism: Western Psychology and Buddhist Teachings (2003), Buddhism and Human Flourishing: A Modern Western Perspective (2020), Living Zen: A Practical Guide to a Balanced Existence (2020) and The House We Live In: Virtue, Wisdom, and Pluralism (2023). Dr. Segall's work integrates Eastern and Western perspectives on the nature of the well-lived life.

Reviews

[M Puri · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who has attempted to explore Buddhism in the past, I found this book easy to read and very relatable compared to others. It opens with a concise overview of Buddhism and Zen, followed by a brief guide on how to practice being Zen in every day life. From there Dr. Segall jumps right in to relatable situations most of us are facing or are going to encounter at some point in our lives. The every day experiences are broken down into three categories: Zen at Home, Zen at Work, and Zen on the Go. For example, negotiating who washes the dishes every night after a long day at work, overcoming internet bullying, coping with aging parents, dealing with incompetent team members at work, curbing road rage, and handling the disappointment of bad weather on a much needed and pricey vacation. There is also a Zen glossary at the end. I would recommend this to anyone who would like a brief and easy guide to using Zen principles in your daily life. This book was provided to me for free by the publisher.

[Vicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thoughts: There are three sections to this book. In the first one, we learn the history of Zen, including how it is practiced both as a part of Buddhism and in self-care. It is a broad overview, but gives you enough information that you can understand the background. The second section is a series of anecdotes that show you how Zen can be applied to everyday life. Each story contains a set of maxims that are being showcased, what the problem is, and how to approach it from a Zen point. There are stories about being dumped, health, internet bullying, and more. The final section is how to find more information, a glossary and other suggestions on going forward. It’s a little sparse, but what is there is helpful.

What I liked: It is a decent introduction to the practice of Zen. There are a lot of examples of how Zen can work in your everyday life.

What I didn’t like: The final section is very sparse in information telling you to look on the internet, but not giving you places that might be a place to start. I guess this is very Zen. It doesn’t tell you what to do, just gives gentle guidance in what you *might* want to do. Plus, some of the words – though explained in the glossary – stopped me because of pronunciation issues. That took me quite a bit of time to figure out.

Recommendation: It’s an informative book with over 100 examples of using Zen in your daily life. Recommended as an addition to your Zen library, but not as a complete study.

Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own and not influenced by anyone or anything.

[Jennifer Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was provided with a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

I am new to the theory and practice of zen and as a complete newbie, I found this book to be fantastic. The first section of the book explains the history and theory of zen, including information about how zen is practiced as both an integral part of Buddhism and as a secular practice for self care. A more advanced or knowledgeable zen practitioner may have some complaints about how broad this overview is, but as a true complete beginner, I thought there was just enough information provided to give context and encourage further research outside of this text (which is helped by a handy list of books and resources at the end of the book!).

The second section tackles the idea of applying zen principles to common challenges faced in day to day life at home, work and on the go, both with intrinsic challenges and external, interpersonal conflicts. It was really refreshing to read through these example cases, as all were fairly easy to relate to and the suggestions for applying a zen approach to these issues were straightforward. I feel that from this book, I can take the leap into trying to become a more calm and centered person utilizing these zen concepts.

The final section is very brief, but again, informative in highlighting suggestions for where to find help in the community to expand upon the introduction to zen practice in this book. If anything, I would have liked to see some more information in this section to really paint a picture for me as to what that community looks like - as again, I'm very new to this practice.

Overall, I would give this 4.5 - 5 stars. It's a great introduction for a true beginner. It made a topic that normally sounds very heavy and daunting very digestible and approachable to a layman.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

Living Zen: A Practical Guide to a Balanced Existance by Seith Zuihō Segall is a good book to read for a beginning Zen practitioner or someone who is interested in exploring Zen practice.
In the first section, Dr. Segall takes thousands of years of complex history and distills in into a few short and easy to understand pages that provide a good knowledge base for getting started or continuing with Zen practice. Later in the book, many of the phrases unfamiliar to someone new to Zen practice are defined in this book so it is a good reference for that purpose.

His Everyday Zen stories are entertaining and easy to read, but certain “maxims” as he calls them repeat and I found myself drawn to one in particular during my first reading of the book. This can be helpful in bringing Zen practice into our day to day lives even if we don’t encounter the same situations described in the book.

Overall an easy to read book with a lot of valuable information for someone interested in learning about Zen practice or working on applying it to day to day life.

[Amy Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is an introduction to Zen for people unfamiliar with it. Part 1 is Zen 101, featuring history, background, and fundamentals of Zen. Part 2 dedicates 1-2 pages to a variety of different situations, presenting an example of the situation and a description of the Zen approach to the situation. I'm not convinced that Zen is for me. There are no shoulds. It's all questions and suggestions for what you could do. It's very different from the typical self-help book, as it never tells you specifically what to do. I think this might be a good primer for people interested in Zen, but it's definitely not a persuasive book.

I received a free copy of this book, but that did not influence my review.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a sweet book that introduces the reader to Zen. It seems to me to aim at the reader who might want to dip a toe into Zen philosophy/psychology, and not someone who is an aspiring deep practitioner. By using his background in psychology, Dr. Segall is able to bring Zen into daily-life activities with a compassion and kindness. The book was a fun, easy read. Thanks, Callisto, for the review copy!

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started out promising. I liked the history at the beginning of the book and the overview of living zen (which is living in the moment). Part two just gave real-life examples and "the zen approach" to them. Most of those examples were relationship-based and not applicable to me. I would have liked the 10 maxims to be explained with less examples. There were literally 100 pages of examples.

[Cassandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a complimentary copy.

It is calming and each simple story has a lot of good reflection it is more of how you chose to use it to better yourself.