Appreciate Your Life: The Essence of Zen Practice - Tapa dura

In the tradition of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, this collection of the teachings of Taizan Maezumi Roshi (1931–1995) consists of short, inspiring readings that illuminate Zen philosophy and practice through simple, eloquent language. Topics include proper meditation practice, the meaning of common Zen expressions, and the cultivation of an enlightened mind. Appreciate Your Life is the first collection of the teachings of this popular and influential Zen master. Taizan Maezumi Roshi was one of the early Asian teachers to bring Zen to the United States. During the last thirty-five years of his life, he taught thousands of Westerners and founded Zen centers throughout the United States, Europe, and Mexico. Appreciate Your Life conveys the unique spirit and teaching style of this important figure, as well as his timeless insights into the practice of Zen. Appreciate Your Life also includes a lengthy foreword by Bernie Glassman, Maezumi Roshi's successor and a prominent contemporary Zen teacher and author. Maezumi Roshi was known to tell his students not to go searching for "Zen," but instead to develop an appreciation for their own lives as their greatest teacher. The readings in Appreciate Your Life are not teachings or instruction in the traditional sense. They are transcriptions of the master's teisho, his presentations of his direct experience of Zen realization. These teisho are crystalline offerings of Zen insight intended to reach beyond the student's intellect to her deepest essence.

Taizan Maezumi Roshi (1931–1995) was a seminal figure in the transmission of Zen Buddhism to the West. He was founding abbot of the Zen Center of Los Angeles (ZCLA) from 1967 to 1995 and of Zen Mountain Center from 1978 to 1995. He and his successors also founded Zen centers throughout the United States, Europe, and Mexico. Maezumi Roshi established The Kuroda Institute for the Study of Buddhism and Human Values, which promotes Buddhist scholarship and publishes, with the University of Hawaii Press, translations of East Asian Buddhist classics. He coauthored On Zen Practice: Foundation of Practice, On Zen Practice II: Body, Breath and Mind, and The Hazy Moon of Enlightenment. He also provided the commentary for The Way of Everyday Life: Zen Master Dogen's Genjokoan.