Big Mind Big Heart: Finding Your Way
by Dennis Genpo Merzel
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Book Summary Information
Author: Dennis Genpo MerzelEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-09-23
ISBN: 0977142337
Number of pages: 192
Publisher: Big Mind Publishing
Book Reviews of Big Mind Big Heart: Finding Your Way
Book Review: The essence of Buddhism illuminated
Summary: 5 Stars
The teaching of the Dharma knows several phases, meeting the different needs of different times or different cultures in which Indian Buddhism was introduced. In India every new chapter in the teaching of the Dharma was called a "turning of the wheel." The first turning of the wheel, in the fifth century B.C., refers to the teaching of the historical Gautama Buddha. His words were not based on divine bestowal such as the Vedas, but on self-exploration and personal experience. The teaching of the Buddha was considered to be unconventional because, contrary to the prevailing beliefs of his time, it did not accept an unchanging absolute behind changing phenomena and instead emphasized impermanence itself. The Buddha tried to let the people of his time discover for themselves that there is nothing you can put your finger on. There is nothing to be found in this life that lasts or that exists independently. If that is true, what moves me?
The second turning of the wheel refers to the teachings of one of the greatest philosophers that India produced, Nagarjuna. He lived in the second century A.D. and was also called the `second Buddha." His philosophy of the Middle Way goes back to the Prajnaparamita Sutras, a corpus of eighteen scriptures of different lengths that deal with the "perfection of wisdom," the realization of openness or the indeterminacy of all phenomena: there is nothing that can be said about them. The subversive element of this second turning of the wheel was that it plainly contradicted the fundamentals of the ancient Buddhist teachings. One of the prominent scriptures of the Prajnaparamita literature, the Heart Sutra, relates to the twelve-fold chain of dependent origination and the very first teaching that the Buddha is thought to have delivered: his sermon on the four noble truths (there is suffering, this suffering has a cause, there is an ending of that cause, there is a path leading to that end):
'(So Shariputra, in openness there is) no ignorance and no end to ignorance ..., until no old age and death and no end to old age and death. No suffering, no cause of suffering, no extinguishing, no path; no attaining and no non-attaining.'
The value of this teaching was that it inspired people to relinquish the words of the Buddha, leading them back to the self-exploration and personal experience from which the Buddha's realization originated.
The third turning of the wheel refers to the teachings of the Vasubandhu and Asanga brothers. They were the principal representatives of the Yogacara School that emerged in the fourth century A.D. They taught that in fact you can make a positive statement about phenomena: what appears before us is "mind only" or "Buddha-nature." This last term is the Buddhist expression for the mystery of our life. All the same it is again a word to express the ineffable.
Buddhism spread throughout the whole of Southeast and East Asia and, around the beginning of the Common Era, it entered the Chinese cultural area via the Silk Routes. In this culture, radically different from the one where Buddhism originated, it blended with Chinese Taoism and Confucianism. In the seventh century A.D., in the mountains at the Yangtze River, after a long and exceedingly complex process of assimilation, a distinctive Chinese Buddhism emerged that was named Ch'an (Zen in Japanese). This new form of Buddhism, which an Indian would not recognize as such, legitimized itself by the Platform Sutra. This sutra proclaimed the distinctive Chinese turning of the Dharma Wheel: just sitting in meditation is nothing but wisdom. There is nothing to do, nothing to develop and nothing to attain, you simply have to be present here and now in order to fully realize the mystery.
In the second half of the twentieth century, Buddhism was transmitted to the West from countries such as Japan, Tibet, Vietnam, Thailand and Korea. At this point it arrives in a culture in which the word "Buddha" is given a completely different meaning than in Asia, if one is capable of doing that at all; in an age with a predominating skepticism and disenchantment on the one hand and unbridled materialism, also in spiritual respect, on the other hand. It is evident that, if Buddhism is to take root in our age and culture, it needs to undergo a metamorphosis as it did in China. It will have to get a distinctive Western character that most Asians will not recognize as being Buddhist. The heart of the matter is: how do you teach the Dharma in the West?
An answer to that question is found by the American Zen Master Genpo Merzel Roshi, in the process that he describes in his book 'Big Mind / Big Heart: Finding Your Way'. Genpo Roshi developed a process that, in complete accordance with the Zen spirit, provides an immediate realization of the richness and depth of our mind. And he developed a distinctive Western form with this process, not just through combining a Western psychotherapeutic method with Buddhist notions and koan meditation, but also by using the "Socratic Dialogue" in which the teacher does not perform the role of authoritarian Zen Master and the student does not silently consume the teaching, but in which he explores himself by expressing himself.
In 'Big Mind / Big Heart: Finding Your Way' the reader makes a miraculous journey through some of the most fundamental aspects of our existence that, although sometimes manifesting to a larger degree and sometimes to a lesser degree, are always there and in the process are directly addressed to and explored. The reader do not read about these aspects; the aspects voice themselves and in our language, and this enables the reader to explore himself. This is the most profound expression of Zen master Dogen 'To study the Buddha-way, is to study the self' I have ever found in a book.
Big Mind / Big Heart not only sheds light on the various aspects of mind. In the journey from aspect to aspect, in that miraculous shift of perspective, a realization unfolds of the depth, the richness and the mystery of our life and, in a simple way, the essence of Buddhism is illuminated. What we read, and the way in which we acquire these insights, is almost too simple to be true and precisely this constitutes the new, subversive character of this Western turning of the wheel. After all, the highest spiritual truth can never be expressed in such a simple way without being violated, and it can never be realized so easily, can it? The answer to this question I gladly leave to the reader.
So, read this book!
Maurice Knegtel, university teacher on Buddhist philosophy and zen student, Holland.
Summary of Big Mind Big Heart: Finding Your Way
This book presents a highly original and accessible pathway to self-discovery and personal liberation. Since 1999 the Big Mind process has been experienced by many thousands of people in seminars across America. Big Mind employs a Jungian voice dialogue technique that enables people to step out of limited self-concepts into awareness of their many different sub-selves (emotions/mental states). In addition to exploration of the more familiar sub-voices like anger and fear, author Zen Master Dennis Genpo Merzel uses this technique to help people access the ever-present Big Mind/Big Heart awareness - the clear, "just being" awareness and the unconditional compassion that we all can experience. The Big Mind process is now available in book form to bring readers of all backgrounds many benefits including: access to our innate wisdom, compassion and equanimity; openness of mind and ability to shift perspectives; greater presence and empowerment; and appreciation for the wisdom within all of our many sub-selves even ones we tend to dislike or disown, like fear and anger.Personal Transformation Books
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