Zen Master Tales
Stories from the Lives of Taigu, Sengai, Hakuin, and Ryokan
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Narrated by:
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Brian Nishii
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By:
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Peter Haskel
About this listen
A lively collection of folk tales and Buddhist teaching stories from four noted premodern Japanese Zen masters: Taigu Sochiku (1584–1669), Sengai Gibon (1750–1837), Hakuin Ekaku (1686–1769), and Taigu Ryokan (1758–1831).
Zen Master Tales collects never-before-translated stories of four prominent Zen masters from the Edo period of Japanese history (1603–1868). Drawn from an era that saw the “democratization” of Japanese Zen, these stories paint a picture of robust, funny, and poignant engagement between Zen luminaries and the emergent chonin or “townsperson” culture of early modern Japan. Here we find Zen monks engaging with samurai, merchants, housewives, entertainers, and farmers. These masters affirmed that the essentials of Zen practice—zazen, koan study, and even enlightenment—could be conveyed to all members of Japanese society in ordinary speech, including even comic verse and work songs.
In his introduction, translator Peter Haskel explains the history of Zen “stories” from the tradition’s Golden Age in China through the compilation of the classic koan collections and on to the era from which the stories in Zen Master Tales are drawn. What was true of the Chinese tradition, he writes—“its focus on the individual’s ordinary activity as the function, the manifestation of the absolute”—continued in the Japanese context. “Most of these Japanese stories, however unabashedly humorous and at times crude, impart something of the character of the Zen masters involved, whose attainment must be plainly manifest in even the most humble and unlikely of situations.”
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Huston Smith, the man who brought the world's religions to the West, was born almost a century ago to missionary parents in China during the perilous rise of the Communist Party. Smith's lifelong spiritual journey brought him face-to-face with many of the people who shaped the 20th century. His extraordinary travels around the globe have taken him to the world's holiest places, where he has practiced religion with many of the great spiritual leaders of our time.
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Takes of wonder for sure, by a wonderful man.
- By Dr. D. Brian Austin on 04-03-19
By: Huston Smith
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The Italian Secretary
- By: Caleb Carr
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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The best-selling author of the Alienist series returns with a chilling elaboration on the Sherlock Holmes canon, as the famed detective investigates a pair of gruesome murders, which cast an otherworldly shadow as far as Queen Victoria herself.
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A True Delight for the Holmes Enthusiast
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By: Caleb Carr
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Hagakure
- The Secret Wisdom of the Samurai
- By: Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Alexander Bennett - translator
- Narrated by: Tim Campbell
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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The comprehensive and accurate edition of the Hagakure is a must-have for serious martial artists or fans of samurai and the Bushido code.
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awesome book on samurai history.
- By Christian Knight on 10-02-20
By: Yamamoto Tsunetomo, and others
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In an Antique Land
- History in the Guise of a Traveler's Tale
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Once upon a time an Indian writer name Amitav Ghosh set out to find an Indian slave, name unknown, who some 700 years before had traveled to the Middle East. The journey took him to a small village in Egypt, where medieval customs coexist with 20th-century desires and discontents. But even as Ghosh sought to re-create the life of his Indian predecessor, he found himself immersed in those of his modern Egyptian neighbors.
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Mixed Worlds
- By Roger on 10-26-10
By: Amitav Ghosh
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The Novice Unabridged
- A Story of True Love
- By: Thích Nhất Hạnh
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 2 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Born to an aristocratic family in rural Vietnam, Kinh Tam’s uncommon beauty and intelligence were obvious to all she encountered. From an early age she was drawn to the teachings of Buddha and the rewards of a monastic life, but to please her family she agreed to walk the traditional path of marriage. Throughout her marriage, Kinh Tam’s mind was devoted to her husband but her heart never waivered from her true calling.
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Lost in translation?
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By: Thích Nhất Hạnh
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The Last Manchu
- The Autobiography of Henry Pu Yi, Last Emperor of China
- By: Paul Kramer, Henry Pu Yi
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
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In 1908, at the age of two, Henry Pu Yi ascended to become the last emperor of the centuries-old Manchu dynasty. After revolutionaries forced Pu Yi to abdicate in 1911, the young emperor lived for 13 years in Peking’s Forbidden City, but with none of the power his birth afforded him. The remainder of Pu Yi’s life was lived out in a topsy-turvy fashion: fleeing from a Chinese warlord, becoming head of a Japanese puppet state, being confined to a Russian prison in Siberia, and enduring taxing labor.
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A Marvelous and Ultimately Sad Memoir
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The Fairy Tales of Herman Hesse
- By: Hermann Hesse, Jack Zipes - translator
- Narrated by: Donovan
- Length: 2 hrs and 53 mins
- Highlights
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Step into a world of visions, philosophy, and passion in which dreamers, seekers, princesses, and wandering poets dwell. The 6 wonderful, romantic tales in this collection are reminiscent of ancient Oriental and German fairy tales. The selections, "The Poet," "The Flute Dream," "The Dwarf," "Faldum," "Ziegler," and "Dream of the Gods" were hand-picked by the narrator, legendary folk and rock musician Donovan.
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The reading is quiet and heavenly
- By Atalante Lemuria on 11-12-20
By: Hermann Hesse, and others
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Experiencing Spirituality
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- Narrated by: Sean Pratt, Shannon Parks
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In Experiencing Spirituality, Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham take listeners on a journey through storytelling as a means of self-discovery. Recounting and interpreting great wisdom stories from all ages and all cultures, as well as telling many of their own, the authors shed light on such experiences as awe, wonder, humor, confusion, and forgiveness. In story after story, seekers look to those whose lives reveal a special quality - sometimes called spirituality - and ask the masters what they must do to attain that same quality.
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Another winner!
- By Strawberrygirl2 on 01-11-15
By: Ernest Kurtz, and others
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The King's Shadow
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- By: Edmund Richardson
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For centuries, the city of Alexandria Beneath the Mountains was a meeting point of East and West. Then it vanished. In 1833, it was discovered in Afghanistan by the unlikeliest person imaginable: Charles Masson, deserter, pilgrim, doctor, archaeologist, spy, one of the most respected scholars in Asia, and the greatest of nineteenth-century travelers.
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Exquisite! A Transporting Tale
- By Meg on 05-02-22
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Heat and Dust
- By: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
- Narrated by: Julie Christie
- Length: 5 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1923 the beautiful, spoiled, and bored Olivia, married to Douglas and his career in the Indian Civil Service, outrages the English and Indian communities by eloping with an Indian prince. Fifty years later, Douglas’s granddaughter, armed with Olivia’s letters, goes back to the heat and dust and squalor of the bazaars to find out for herself how Olivia could have been so affected by India that she turned her back on her own country.
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Short, Rich Novel
- By David P on 01-23-22
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Hagakure
- The Book of the Samurai
- By: Yamamoto Tsunetomo, William Scott Wilson - translator
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 5 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Living and dying with bravery and honor is at the heart of Hagakure, a series of texts written by an 18th-century samurai, Yamamoto Tsunetomo. It is a window into the samurai mind, illuminating the concept of bushido (the Way of the Warrior), which dictated how samurai were expected to behave, conduct themselves, live, and die.
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Great Way to Experience the Book Again
- By WildKarrde on 07-10-17
By: Yamamoto Tsunetomo, and others
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Sea of Poppies
- Ibis Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 18 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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At the heart of this vibrant saga is an immense ship, the Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean, its purpose to fight China's vicious 19th-century Opium Wars. As for the crew, they are a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts.
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ignorance may be bliss
- By Evelyn M Kloepper on 07-27-09
By: Amitav Ghosh
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What listeners say about Zen Master Tales
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Performance
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- JK
- 03-31-24
ENJOYABLE
All different tales and all delightful and enjoyable.
The tales shed a light on “old Japan”. If you let your imagination go, you can feel and see the scenes described.
I highly recommend this book.
Mr. Brian Nishi is an outstanding narrator!
My thanks to all involved, JK.
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Performance
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- Rishat
- 09-20-23
Great stories
Very well audio quality and good voice. Was time well spent, especially if you committed to zen study.
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Overall
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- Carlos Martin
- 06-19-24
Beautiful tales
Love all and any sort of Zen tales, specially when narrated by Brian Nishii. Even tho I've listened some of these in other books, i never tire of them, always new beauty and wisdom to be found ❤️
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- Amazon Customer
- 05-16-24
Not the beautiful short Zen stories
If you’re looking to here those beautiful short zen stories this is not the book for you, it is full of dates and names and more of a biography of 3 guys that unless you’re familiar with them you will be lost in the book.
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