Lemuria Bookstore Blog

The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain Translated by Red Pine Copper Canyon Press (2000) About five years ago during some troubles, a friend visited while he was reading The Collected Songs. Before he left, he gave me his copy with the inscription: “For John, who could use this book.” And I have: reading, rereading and [...]

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Where the World Does Not Follow: Buddhist China in Picture and Poem Translated by Mike O’Connor / Photography by Steven R. Johnson Wisdom Publications: Boston (2002) *     *     * O’Connor’s translation of ancient poems, alongside Johnson’s breathtaking photography, bring these ancient words to the present. Zen and Taoist poetry coupled with timeless images make for [...]

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My discovery from Best Buddhist Writing: 2008 (see this blog entry) was Ridgzin Shikpo (Michael Hookham) who began his practice in the 1950s. In 1965, Shikpo met his principle teacher, Chogyam Trungpa Rimpoche, and received detailed instruction from him on the preliminary and main practice of the Dzogchen tradition. Shikpo’s emphasis is on presenting Dzogchen’s [...]

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Above: Lemuria’s Zen Section The Best Buddhist Writing of 2008, Edited by Melvin McLeod, Shambala (2008) I look forward each year to this collection. I have found many new books and authors to read from McLeod’s work. However, one of my enjoyments is rereading the editor’s selections from books I’ve read already. It’s interesting to see [...]

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Ocean of Dharma 365 Teachings of Living Life with Courage and Compassion The Everyday Wisdom: by Chogyam Trungpa Shambala (2008) Trungpa published Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism in 1973. When I opened Lemuria in 1975, and touched upon Zen, Trungpa books were established and acknowledged in the middle America counter culture. His work became a staple [...]

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Ethics for the New Millennium By His Holiness, the Dalai Lama Riverhead Books (1999)        In Tibetan, the greatest significance in determining the ethical value of a given action is that the internal drive or inspiration for our action; both those we intend directly and those, which are in a sense involuntary. These actions denote the [...]

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The Poetry of Zen Translated and edited by Sam Hammill and J. P. Seaton Shambala Library (2004)   This nice little book is an excellent introduction to the Zen poets.  It is divided into two parts:             1) Chinese poems             2) Japanese poems. Both are well represented and give the reader an understanding of [...]

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The Art of Power Thich Nhat Hanh HarperOne (2007) Having read a few of Thich Nhat Hanh’s books before and enjoying them, I was inclined to see how he would deal with the subject of power. “Power is good for one thing only: to increase our happiness and the happiness of others,” he states. Revealing [...]

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Light Comes Through Buddhist Teachings on Awakening to Our Natural Intelligence By Dzigar Kongtrul Shambala (July 2008) Last year, or so, I enjoyed DK’s other book Its Up To You in a large scale way. Excited about his 2nd book, I dived in ASAP. Learning how to work on our emotional selves is so interesting [...]

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The Selected Poems By Li Po (701-762) Translated by David Hinton New Directions (1996) About 4 years ago, I read this collection and last month I decided to reread Li Po, one of my favorite Chinese poets. Li Po was called the “Banished Immortal,” an exiled spirit moving through this world with an unearthly ease [...]

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