100 books like Living Buddha Zen

I love how Francis Lucille’s teaching stays rooted in the most essential question—“Who am I, really?—in ways that are, in turn, serious and playful, gentle and fierce. Love and Beauty and Truth are deeply honored throughout this lovely book, which presents a series of dialogues between Francis and students asking questions about him.

As Francis is fond of saying, “A true answer dissolves not only the question but also the questioner.” I appreciate the opportunity to witness this process, again and again, as Francis so skillfully points (like the proverbial finger to the moon) to “that which can’t be spoken”—but can be most intimately known. 

Both John Wheeler's books and audio interviews have blown my mind—in the best way! I simply adore his unwavering commitment to clear, direct pointers to the self-evident fact of "being" and "awareness" as our true nature and most essential identity.

Again and again, John Wheeler reminds me that this being-awareness—this continuous background of clear, steady presence—is the “space” in which all thoughts, sensations, and perceptions appear and disappear. It is what always remains unchanged, like a vast blue sky through which various clouds come and go. John invites me to clearly understand and joyfully affirm: I am the sky of awareness. 

This is one of those books that I almost couldn’t put down, and I was genuinely sad about its end. Unlike many manifestation manuals, this one avoids the twin pitfalls of New-Age wishful thinking and blaming the victim for circumstances beyond their control.

These techniques are rooted in brain science as well as loving-kindness and compassion. They demonstrate how the power of our human mind, when properly understood and employed, may appear to be “magical.” I loved learning about the author’s own rise out of poverty to billionaire-level wealth, then losing that all and rebuilding it on a firmer foundation of true wisdom and compassion. And how skillfully I was guided along a step-by-step path toward fulfilling my most cherished intentions/goals/dreams. 

This book enters a territory that very few books do—describing ways of facilitating an encounter with our most intimate yet ineffable true nature. Each time I read a few pages (usually the most I can digest at any given time), I feel so grateful for it!

In this uniquely valuable guidebook, I learn things I’ve not learned anywhere else about accessing and sustaining a “field” of nondual awareness in which psychological suffering simply cannot exist. Instead, this apparent suffering naturally dissolves to reveal the radiant awareness that is our true nature.

Natalie Goldberg is an internationally acclaimed teacher of writing and Zen practice and her autobiography Long Quiet Highway resonated deeply with me. I’ve considered myself a spiritual seeker since the age of 13 and knew from much earlier that writing is an intrinsic part of my creative expression. Yet I had never considered these two important aspects of my life together. After I read this book, my workshop presentations for adults took a different direction where I was no longer teaching what I knew but sharing a learning experience together. 

I discovered the profound connection between Zen practice and the art of cooking in this insightful work by the revered Zen master, Dogen.

Through a series of engaging teachings, Dogen explores how the simple act of preparing and sharing food can become a transformative spiritual practice, fostering mindfulness, gratitude, and connection. I read this book before attending a long period of meditation, and it changed my view on day-to-day work completely.

How to Cook Your Life offers a unique perspective on the integration of Zen wisdom into daily life, inviting readers to cultivate a deeper sense of presence and harmony through the nourishment of body and soul.

After reading this book, I learned to love cooking again and in addition consider it spiritual practice.

I go back to this again and again. Morinaga’s hilarious and frank take on his blundering attempts to stumble into Zen is irresistible.

The way he tracks his own arrogance, stubbornness, and misunderstandings as he tries to stand up to his austere master, by turns humiliated and scolded, then drinking up any faint praise, and just occasionally starting to open to the down-to-earth, kind but stern guidance his teacher is actually offering—all make for a book I love again and again, and don’t want to put down any time I pick it up. (I use it in Zen teaching frequently.)  And how he finally enters a deep, enlightened friendship with his master still moves me every time. It’s a timeless gem for me.

We need to learn from our ancestors. Taizan Maezumi Roshi (1931-1995), was one of the first Japanese Zen masters to bring Zen to the West and founding abbot of the Zen Center of Los Angeles and Zen Mountain Center in Idyllwild, California. This inspiring collection of teachings explore zazen and Zen koans, how to appreciate your life as the life of the Buddha, and the essential matter of life and death. As Maezumi Roshi says, this book is a companion to "be intimate with your life."

Brazier begins with his own experience of Zen training, and then continues on to a survey of Buddhist ideas and how each of them relates to the practice of psychotherapy. For example he takes the profound and mysterious concept of karma and then shows us how this is related to the process of helping a patient understand their repetitive psychological patterns. He addresses the topic that was central to my own path of merging psychotherapy and meditation: how loss and death are teachers. He explains the main lesson they teach: what is lost is our illusion of how the world is put together.

I read this book when it first came out in 1995 and have kept a copy of it for all those years, re-reading it again and again. This book is the journal and letters of Maura O'Halloran, a young Irish-American who went to Japan and joined a Zen Buddhist temple for monks at a time (the early 1980s) when few western women were admitted to such extremely arduous training. It tells of her three years in the temple in a heart-warming, honest way, with an abundance of humor. This book gives a brilliant look into life in a Zen temple, and Maura’s detailed observations and humble descriptions of her breakthroughs are a heartfelt reminder that no matter where we are on our spiritual path, we're human and there’s always hope.