We live with minds as open and spacious as the deep blue sky. Living in Blue Sky Mind presents basic Buddhist teachings that keep us on the wholesome path of self-realization toward a happy life. Zen priest and Dharma Teacher Richard Gentei Diedrichs offers simple lessons, anecdotes of personal transformation, and reflective questions to guide us along Buddha's enlightened way.
Gentei has practiced Zen for fifty years. He believes that everyone can access and ultimately live in blue sky mind - the vast, luminous, calm and clear mindscape that is often clouded by our own thoughts, emotions, and delusions. Living in Blue Sky Mind offers a series of Dharma talks, originally presented at the Sunday Family Services, with adults, children, parents, grandparents, sisters and brothers, at Daifukuji Zen Temple, in Kona, Hawaii.
Gentei uses these talks to explore the major topics in Zen practice. In simple, straightforward prose, he explains key Buddhist concepts, such as the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, the Six Perfections, the Four Wisdoms, the Three Refuges, the Seven Factors of Enlightenment, and the Three Poisons, that trap us in confusion and limit the vast openness that we are. Living in Blue Sky Mind gives the beginning practitioner a clear, simple understanding of what one might believe and do while living as a Zen practitioner. At the same time, even long-time students of Zen can benefit from the book’s simple reminders.
The chapters are short, and the lessons are powerful and specific. Many are punctuated by Gentei's personal stories that place the teaching in the context of real-life, daily decisions with real consequences.
As Gentei writes in the introduction to Living in Blue Sky Mind: “I sincerely believe that if all humans on Earth meditated regularly, and followed even the spirit of Buddha’s teachings, as I have described here, we would live in an entirely different world, a world revolving around lovingkindness, compassion, and wisdom.”
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