Welcoming Beginner's Mind Zen and Tibetan Buddhist Wisdom on Experiencing Our True Nature

This nuanced commentary on the famous Zen oxherding pictures explores the paradox of welcoming our true nature anew at each stage of spiritual unfolding.

Renowned for centuries, the classic Zen oxherding pictures vividly illustrate the stages of the spiritual journey—from seeking and finding to ultimately forgetting the illusory self and awakening to our true nature. In his commentary on these images, Gaylon Ferguson guides us on an experiential path into these seeming contradictions through welcoming—the simple, challenging, and always new possibility of opening to exactly what’s occurring in our experience. Distinct from meditation and mindfulness, this contemplative exercise leads us beyond spiritual bypassing (using spiritual practices to repress or avoid parts of ourselves) and spiritual materialism (practicing with a heavy sense of ego). Rich with teachings from the great Zen teacher and author of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, as well as extensive commentary from Tibetan meditation master Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and others who have illuminated the oxherding pictures, this book invites you into a process of spiritual maturation that never occurs elsewhere than here or other than now.
 
Featuring a foreword by David Chadwick, author of Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Zen Teaching of Shunryu Suzuki.

GAYLON FERGUSON, PhD, has practiced and taught Buddhism for over four decades. He received a doctorate in cultural anthropology in 1996 and taught at several universities, including fifteen years as core faculty at Naropa. He is a senior dharma teacher in the Shambhala International Buddhist community and has led meditation programs in numerous cities in the U.S. and internationally since 1976. He has been published in anthologies including Dharma, Color, and Culture; Mindful Politics; and Black and Buddhist, and he is the author of Natural Wakefulness and Natural Bravery.