Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice
About the book
The informal talks collected here were given by Shunryu Suzuki in Los Altos, California, at his satellite Zen center. His student Marian Derby recorded them, and Trudy Dixon and Richard Baker, Suzuki's successor, selected the most relevant and arranged them into chapters. Suzuki covers the basics, from zazen posture and breathing to perceiving nonduality, drawing on common sense and everyday events for his examples. Beginner's mind, in his teaching, is an open attitude that holds both doubt and possibility and sees things as fresh and new. The Rochester Zen Center's abbot, Bodhin Kjolhede, names it and The Three Pillars of Zen, by Philip Kapleau, as the two Zen books with the most influence in the West.
Steve Jobs was reported to have relied on its methods to steady himself in hard stretches of his career. Digg co-founder Kevin Rose described it as a short book on self-realization, breathing and relaxation rather than a religious text.
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This book has 4 recommendations
Steve Jobs (Founder/Apple)
Steve Jobs often used the methods found in this book to center himself during difficult moments in his career. He was such an avid practitioner that he considered going to Japan to continue his practice, but was advised against it.
Robert Hajnal (Founder/Trail Running Academy)
Because running is primarily a meditative tool.
Kevin Rose (Co-founder/Digg)
Isn’t a religious book, but more on self-realization, study on yourself, breathing exercises, relaxation and understanding human nature. Really cool book, very short read and you will really enjoy reading.
David Heinemeier Hansson (Co-Founder/Basecamp)
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind is an introduction to Buddhism and meditation. There are a lot of echoes between Stoicism and Buddhism, and I thought I’d dive deeper into this on recommendation from Eric Dodson (great YouTube channel for existentialist and stoic explainers and introductions). So far I’m finding that there’s longer between the nuggets of wisdom that slot into my brain than with the stoic writers. But I do enjoy the thread of pushing back against dualistic ideas (separating you from the world, good from bad, etc), as well as the focus on the Beginner’s Mind.
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Steve Jobs, Robert Hajnal, Kevin Rose, David Heinemeier Hansson