Rodmell Press: Buddhism: Being Upright

Being Upright:
Zen Meditation and the Bodhisattva Precepts
Reb Anderson
ISBN 1-930485-01-8 | $16.95
paperback | 256 pages | 6" X 9"

Praise

"The precepts are nothing more or less than the simple manifestation of actual practice: what the mind and heart of Zen look like when engaged with the world. In this clear, luminous, and encouraging book, Reb Anderson investigates and opens each of the precepts until we can see its true face—not a rule, not a guiding concept, but the fragrant flower of awakened life, passed from generation to generation, and now between us."

—Jane Hirshfield
Author of Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry and
Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women

"I really like this book! It will be very useful to spiritual practitioners, Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike. Reb Anderson has managed to express his subtle and hard-earned wisdom in language that is wonderfully simple, clear, and free of jargon—an impressive feat."

—Ty Koontz
Former editor of The Laughing Man

"Being Upright is a large and compassionate, thorough and clear book about an important, but sometimes neglected, aspect of Zen—the precepts. Thank you, Reb, for bringing them forward."

—Natalie Goldberg
Author of Thunder and Lightening
and Living Color

"Being Upright is a much-needed book that provides a solid basis for upright practice. Its very language is upright."

—David Steindl-Rast, O.S.B.
Author of A Listening Heart: The Spirituality of Sensuousness

"This book, written by one of Suzuki Roshi's first Western students, presents incisive discussions about the relationship between ethics and meditation in Zen Buddhism. Reb Anderson's accounts of his participation in some of the turbulent events in Western Zen's last twenty years are particularly insightful."

—Rita M. Gross, Ph.D.
Author of Buddhism after Patriarchy and Soaring and Settling: Buddhist Perspectives on Contemporary Social and Religious Issues.

"Being Upright is an exceptionally thoughtful penetration of the bodhisattva precepts, illuminated by stories of mondo, or "dharma combat," between great teachers. Rather than depending on safe generalities and abstractions, the author shows candor and courage by pointing to mistakes and frailties in his own practice—a skillful means of instruction. This excellent book, by one of his foremost disciples, does honor to Shunryu Suzuki and his teachings."

—Peter Matthiessen (Muryo Roshi)
Author of The Snow Leopard and
Nine-Headed Dragon River: Zen Journals 1969-1982

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