Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness () von Shunryu Suzuki

When Shunryu Suzuki Roshi'sZen Mind, Beginner's Mind was published in 1972, it was enthusiastically embraced by Westerners eager for spiritual insight and knowledge of Zen. The book became the most successful treatise on Buddhism in English, selling more than one million copies to date.Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness is the first follow-up volume to Suzuki Roshi's important work. LikeZen Mind, Beginner's Mind, it is a collection of lectures that reveal the insight, humor, and intimacy with Zen that made Suzuki Roshi so influential as a teacher.

TheSandokai—a poem by the eighth-century Zen master Sekito Kisen (Ch. Shitou Xiqian)—is the subject of these lectures. Given in 1970 at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, the lectures are an example of a Zen teacher in his prime elucidating a venerated, ancient, and difficult work to his Western students. The poem addresses the question of how the oneness of things and the multiplicity of things coexist (or, as Suzuki Roshi expresses it, "things-as-it-is"). Included with the lectures are his students' questions and his direct answers to them, along with a meditation instruction. Suzuki Roshi's teachings are valuable not only for those with a general interest in Buddhism but also for students of Zen practice wanting an example of how a modern master in the Japanese Soto Zen tradition understands this core text today.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION
Mel Weitsman

SEKITO KISEN AND THE SANDOKAI
Michael Wenger

NOTES TO THE READER

THE SANDOKAI
English Translation
Chinese Text and Japanese Transliteration

FIRST TALK
Things-As-It-Is

SECOND TALK
Warm Hand to Warm Hand

THIRD TALK
Buddha Is Always Here

FOURTH TALK
The Blue Jay Will Come Right into Your Heart

FIFTH TALK
Today We May Be Very Happy

SIXTH TALK
The Boat Is Always Moving

SEVENTH TALK
Without Any Idea of Attainment

EIGHTH TALK
Within Light There Is Utter Darkness

NINTH TALK
The Willow Tree Cannot Be Broken

TENTH TALK
Suffering Is a Valuable Thing

A SHORT TALK DURING ZAZEN

ELEVENTH TALK
We Should Not Stick to Words or Rules

TWELFTH TALK
Do Not Pass Your Days and Nights in Vain

TALK GIVEN TO A VISITING CLASS
We Are Just a Tiny Speck of Big Being

THE SANDOKAI
Compiled Translation by Suzuki Roshi

LINEAGE CHART OF TEACHERS
MENTIONED IN THE TEXT