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Buddhist Books

A Classic Zen text written in the 8th century by Hui Hai. He was a student of Ma-tsu and from the same line as Hui Neng, Huang Po and Rinzai (Lin-chi).

Ajahn Sumedho urges us to trust in awareness and find out for ourselves what it is to experience genuine liberation from mental anguish and suffering.

The Short Prajnaparamita Texts were composed in India between 100 BC and AD 600. They contain some of the most well known Buddhist texts such as The Perfection of Wisdom in 700 Lines, The Heart Sutra, and The Diamond Sutra.

Buddhist meditation is the process of breaking free of mental activity in order to hear what we hear, smell what we smell, taste what we taste and see what we see, without making judgements. Life then becomes sharp, clear, straight experience instead of every scene being accompanied by a silent running commentary or a series of judgements and reactions.

To be free of mental activity is not to lose one’s mind or suddenly become foolish or irre­sponsible; it is to simply deal directly with existence as it arises rather than through any kind of intermediary or filter; it is to face reality directly. We might then start to recognise that much of what we thought we knew was, in fact, just thought, just belief.