Dropping Ashes on the Buddha: The Teaching of Zen Master Seung Sahn

Front Cover
Grove Press, 1976 - Religion - 232 pages
"Somebody comes into the Zen center with a lighted cigarette, walks up to the Buddha statue, blows smoke in its face, and drops ashes on its lap. You are standing there. What can you do?" This is a problem that Zen Master Seung Sahn is fond of posing to his American students who attend his Zen centers. Dropping Ashes on the Buddha is a delightful, irreverent, and often hilariously funny living record of the dialogue between Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn and his American students. Consisting of dialogues, stories, formal Zen interviews, Dharma speeches, and letters using the Zen Master's actual words in spontaneous, living interaction with his students, this book is a fresh presentation of the Zen teaching method of "instant dialogue" between Master and student which, through the use of astonishment and paradox, leads to an understanding of ultimate reality.
 

Contents

Zen Is Understanding Yourself
3
The Zen Circle
5
My Dharma Is Too Expensive
8
Advice to a Beginner
10
Inside Outside
19
A Child Asks About Death
20
Who Needs a Zen Master
22
You Are Attached
23
Samadhi vs Satori
113
LinChis KATZ
115
Nirvana and Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi
117
Zen and the Arts
118
Plastic Flowers Plastic Mind
121
True Emptiness
123
You Must Wake Up
124
More Ashes on the Buddha
125

About the Heart Sutra
25
Not Difficult Not Easy
28
A Dharma Speech
30
What Is One Plus Two?
32
What to Do About Noise
33
You Must Become Completely Crazy
34
The Story of Ko Bong
36
How Can the Buddha Be Smiling?
39
Apples and Oranges
41
Kongan Blues
42
The 84000 Levels of Enlightenment
46
What Is Freedom?
49
The Great Treasure
50
The Moon of Clear Mind
51
What Have You Brought Here?
52
Enlightened and Unenlightened Are Empty Names
54
Why We Chant
56
A Dharma Speech
58
The Story of Won Hyo
60
Porcupines in RatHoles
63
Practicing Zen
66
It Is Your Mind That Is Moving
68
Bodhisattva Attachment
70
Five Kinds of Zen
71
The Color of Snow
75
DontKnow Mind Continued
76
Zen and Tantra
79
The 10000 Questions Are One Question
80
Buddha Is Grass Shoes
82
Three Interviews
84
When the Lights Go Off What?
86
Testing the Mind
87
What Is Death?
89
Wanting Enlightenment
91
The True Way for Women
93
Can You See Your Eyes?
94
Special Medicine and Big Business
96
Miracles
99
A Dharma Speech
102
A Little Thinking A Little Sparring
104
NoAttainment Is Attainment
107
True Sitting Zen
111
The Story of Su Tungpo
129
What Nature Is Saying to You
132
It
135
Does the Cat Have BuddhaNature?
140
Out of the Depths
141
Funny
144
The Story of Kyong Ho
145
Bodhisattva Sin
148
A Dharma Speech
150
The True Way
151
Sex MindZen Mind?
153
KeenEyed Lions and Blind Dogs
156
Original Sound Original Body
158
The Story of Mang Gong
163
Mang Gong Explains His KATZ
167
The Transmission of NoMind
168
Inside the Cows Belly
169
Today Is Buddhas Birthday The Sun Is Shining
171
Dok Sahn and His Stick
173
All Things Are Your Teachers
174
Who Makes One?
184
What Is Your Star?
186
The Story of Sul
187
Dialogue with Swami X
191
Big Mistake
196
The Tathagata
200
Bodhidharma and I
201
Correspondence with an Ordained American Lawyer
202
Saving All People
211
Dialogue at Tal Mah Sah
212
The Boat Monk
213
When the Bell Is Rung Stand Up
217
The Story of Mun Ik
218
What Did You Say?
220
Much Ado About Nothing
221
An Ambush in the Fields of Dharma
222
UnMuns ShortAnswer Zen
223
Ko Bong Explains a Poem
224
The Story of Seung Sahn Soensa
226
What Is Love?
232
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Dropping Ashes on the Buddha: The Teachings of Zen Master Seung Sahn
Stephen Mitchell
Limited preview - 2007
Dropping Ashes on the Buddha: The Teaching of Zen Master Seung Sahn
Sungsan Tae Sŏnsa
Snippet view - 1976

Common terms and phrases

1975 Dear Soen-sa-nim answer apple asked Seung Sahn attached to name attain enlightenment become big love Bodhidharma Bodhisattva bridge Zen Center Buddha Buddha-nature Buddha's birthday Buddhism chanting clear mind death Dharma Speech Dharma talk disappear Dok Sahn dokusan eminent teacher empty mind everything Form is emptiness hard training hear Heart Sutra hindrance hit the floor hit you thirty inside Jo-ju karma keep don't-know mind kong-an Kyong Laughter letter Lin-chi Lotus Sutra Ma-jo Mang Gong Manjushri means moktak monk mountain name and form Nirvana Okay poem pounds of flax practice Zen Providence Zen Center question samadhi sesshin Seung Sahn Soen-sa shakuhachi shouted KATZ sitting Zen Soen-sa hit Soen-sa laughed soon student asked Seung student bowed student was silent Sutra says swami Tathagata teach temple Thank things thinking true emptiness truth Tung-p'o Un-mun walked whole universe Won Hyo Zen Master

References to this book

About the author (1976)

Poet and writer Stephen Mitchell attended Amherst College, the Sorbonne, and Yale University. He has been training in Zen mediation for more than 25 years. His book, Real Power, uses ancient wisdom to study power, the key to business. Mitchell also translated the Tao Te Ching.

Bibliographic information

TitleDropping Ashes on the Buddha: The Teaching of Zen Master Seung Sahn
Volume 675 of Evergreen book
AuthorSungsan Tae Sŏnsa
EditorStephen Mitchell
Compiled byStephen Mitchell
Editionillustrated, reprint
PublisherGrove Press, 1976
ISBN0802130526, 9780802130525
Length232 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Religion / Buddhism / General
Religion / Buddhism / Zen
  
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