search for books and compare prices
Tables of Contents for The Zen Teachings of Jesus
Chapter/Section Title
Page #
Page Count
Acknowledgments
9
2
Introduction
11
8
The Daunting task of studying Jesus
The clutter of preconceptions and presumptions
Emptying one's mind
Searching for the historical Jesus
Validity of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed
Shocks from the scholars
Reading the Gospels, Zen Style
19
13
Finding Zen in our own Backyard
Zen is transcultural and transreligious
The lost dimensions of Jesus' spirituality-joy, humor, and poetry
The pitfalls of being ``serious''
Seriousness as a sign of the ego
Humor as a way to truth Jesus as poet
The sober Jesus versus the smiling Buddha
The ``Irreverent'' tradition of Zen
The kingdom is NOW!
The wonder of ordinary magic
True spirituality is art
The curse of Bible inerrancy
Love versus moralism
The sensuous anointing
Initiating the beginner's mind
What is Zen? (I): The Art of Living
32
22
Can Zen be Defined?
``Holy outrageousness''
Zen does not mean sitting meditation
The eccentricities of Zen
Zen as mental culture
A mini-history of Zen
Zen as the bridge between the spiritual and the mundane
Zen and the Chinese mind
Zen as a spirituality without the trappings of religion
Zen as the poetization of life
Zen and Taoism
Hui Neng, the sixth patriarch
Zen has no formula
The notion of discipline in Zen
Zen can only be shown
The Sermon of the Flower versus the sermon on the Mount
Presence as the basis of spirituality
Zen, art, and ordinary magic
Recovering the zest for life
Zen and the ``Aha!'' experience
Wu-wei is not doing nothing
The playful way to excellence
The use of uselessness
Zen and the fine arts
What is Zen? (II): The Heart of the Matter
54
16
Zen, motherhood, and apple, pie
The yin and the yang: creative tension
The artful gentleness of Butcher Pao
Spiritual judo: understanding the power of weakness
True freedom as a reflection of gentleness
The ``magic of thinking small''
Learning simplicity from the Cosmo-girl
Paradoxity as the heart of Zen
The Zen world of poetic craziness
Zen lessons from the flops of artificial intelligence
The value of fuzziness
Left-brain versus right-brain thinking
Zen experience can't be verbalized
Zen and soul
Zen as inward quest
The Magic Kingdom
70
13
The mystery of time
Clock time versus psychological time
What is it like to be an angel?
The Tao cannot be sought
Eternity as the disappearance of time
The kingdom and peak experiences
``The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed''
Entry into the thoughtless zone
The pitfalls of hope
What is happiness?
Zen: The Art of Seeing
83
16
Fuzziness as opportunity
Enlightenment as creative visualization
Reverse bodhisattvas
Real alchemy
Being ``born anew''
``Nirvana is not the result of anything''
The koan of the Son of Man
Lessons from the Fiery Serpent
The mystery of Sisyphus's smile
Hell as the path to heaven
The First Noble Truth revisited
Seeing is the only truth
``This is it!''
The paradoxes of life
The Looking-Glass Universe
99
14
The topsy-turvy world of Zen
Who is Jesus?
The Son of God as archetype
The death koan of Jesus
The Tale of the Unfortunate Traveler
Choicelessness as freedom
The stranger revisited
Death as healer
The culture of wabi-sabi
The beauty of inverse laws
Living dangerously
The poignant bitter-sweetness of life
Finding nirvana in samsara
The Usual Hell
113
18
Heaven as the loser
Voluntary hell
The big secret-hell is already here!
The myth of perpetual suffering
Just a little thought
The Unaquenchable Fire
Hell and mindfulness
Hell is the normal state
Hell is not punishment
Parable of the Prodigal Son
Perfection in imperfection
Are we a nation of self-loathing masochists?
Hell and the hide-and-seek God
Coming to terms with lila
Faith
131
20
Lessons from the Temple of the Broken God
``Faith'' as cosmeticized greed and fear
``Religion'' as a hindrance to true faith
Faith as the courage to be
The importance of surrendering
Faith as erotic love
Faith as gentleness toward life
Every day is a good day
Faith as paranoia
``Do you want to be saved?''
What is idolatry?
What is spiritual truth?
``Only don't know''
Christian ``hope'' and Buddhist ``hopelessness''
Hope as an inner search for meaning
Rebuilding faith
My Yoke is Easy
151
16
``In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing''
Zen as everyday spirituality
Religion as the pursuit of beauty
Inner beauty as self-abandonment
Grace versus art
``Law came in to increase the trespass''
The Koan of One Hand Clapping
Understanding koans
Learning to trust
The prevalence of the hero-mind
Can a Zen person be ambitious?
Stopping the Big Theif
What Defiles a Man
167
17
The power of silence
What is listening?
The experience of the Holy
Limitations of concepts, words, and thoughts
The fluidity of a ``cup''
To see the world in a grain of rice
Flowers and garbage
The participatory universe
The ubiquitous Jesus
Conciousness as a double-edged sword
``Who told you that you are naked?''
The Unforgivable Sin
Separation as a part of growing up
Forgetting the words
Resist Not Evil
184
20
The art of loving one's enemies
Appreciating the thorns of life
Exorcism: Western style versus Zen style
Naming demons
The problems with scapegoating
Getting to the root of the illness
The amputational approach to purity
Resist not evil!
The care of the soul
Tantra as the path of love
The Fighter versus the Warrior
True gentleness and true toughness
The herb that both kills and heals
Pitfalls of asceticism
Tantra as a necessary part of spiritual growth
Avoidance and indulgence as expressions of escapism
Tantric practice through the development of respect, attention, understanding, and responsibility
Love
204
15
Are Zen masters afraid of love?
What is love?
Love as Goodness
True love is indiscriminate
The All-in-One Commandment
Unconditional love as nonsense to the rational mind
Love is not favoritism
No-mind as true love
Love as an expression of freedom
Can love be willed?
Love and wu-wei
Love is openess to life
The primacy of self-love
Love is a matter of seeing
Compassion as insight into interconnectedness
The Oneness of Life
I Am the Way
219
8
Does Christianity have a monopoly on truth?
Gnostic versus synoptic gospels
Understanding Gnosticism
Gnosticism as Christian Zen
The great ``I Am''
The koan of ``Who am I?''
The Self is the Way
Epilogue/The Beginning of a New Paradigm
227
6
The reading of classics
Multiple interpretations as a blessing
The Western notion of truth
Even truth cannot be attached to
Truth and security are incompatible
The use of ambiguity
We read what we are
The veiling of higher truths
Resolving the conflict between mystics and orthodoxy
We all have the fundamentalist instinct
Zen does not fight anything
A new paradigm for spirituality
A fearless entry into life
Notes
233