One of the oldest Zen poems goes like this:
A special transmission outside the scriptures;
No dependence upon words and letters;
Direct pointing at the soul of man:
Seeing into one’s nature and the attainment of Buddhahood.
And it is often said that reading about Zen to reach enlightenment is about as useful as reading about food to lose weight. Nevertheless it is for most people the only way to learn about Zen-Buddhism because you don’t find Zen masters on every corner of the street. It can be a good starting point or just to satisfy your curiosity about what Zen is.
I will discuss here some of the books I have read and found particularly helpful.
Buddhism Plain and Simple by Steve Hagen
This is a very good introduction to (Zen-)Buddhism and I enjoyed reading it very much. In easy to understand words it explains what Zen is about and what it’s major ideas are. Without using mystical paradoxes it tells us how to understand the Four Noble Truths and walk the Eightfold path. How to use it to help us in everyday life and learn to be more aware. Steve explains the importance of Awareness and how this help us to get a better grip on our lives. In three parts he first explains what our trouble with life actually is and where our unrest comes from. The second part deals with how to become more awake and concentrated. The last part delves a little bit deeper into important Zen concepts like: the self, seeing the world as it is and the idea that all is one.
The reason why this book is very special to me is because of an exercise in this book that has made an ineradicable impression on me. Steve Hagen uses an image of an everyday object that has been altered in a way that at first you can’t understand the image. Steve encourages us to take note of the confusion inside us when we see an image but don’t understand what it is we’re looking at. I myself felt this very clearly and it helped me to understand how deep our inner urge is to label the things we see. It’s almost impossible for us to look at something an just take it for what it is. We have to give our experiences a meaning.