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  • Published: 1 January 2004
  • ISBN: 9781590300794
  • Imprint: Shambhala
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 160
  • RRP: $45.00

Infinite Circle

Teachings in Zen



This introduction to Zen teachings is a “watershed book for Zen students, a good study companion and a trustworthy guide” (Norman Fischer, author of The World Could Be Otherwise)

In Infinite Circle, one of America's most distinctive Zen teachers takes a back-to-basics approach to Zen. Glassman illuminates three key teachings of Zen Buddhism, offering line-by-line commentary in clear, direct language:

• The Heart Sutra: the Buddha's essential discourse on emptiness, a central sutra of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition.
• "The Identity of Relative and Absolute": an eighth-century poem by Shih-t'ou His-ch'ien, a key text of the Soto Zen school.
• The Zen precepts: the rules of conduct for laypeople and monks.

His commentaries are based on workshops he gave as Abbot of the Zen Community of New York, and they contain within them the principles that became the foundation for the Greyston Mandala of community development organizations and the Zen Peacemaker Order.

  • Published: 1 January 2004
  • ISBN: 9781590300794
  • Imprint: Shambhala
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 160
  • RRP: $45.00

About the author

Bernie Glassman

Jeff Bridges is an Oscar-winning actor, performer, songwriter and photographer. He has appeared in more than 70 films, including The Big Lebowski, Crazy Heart, True Grit, Iron Man, Seabiscuit, The Fabulous Baker Boys and The Last Picture Show. He is co-founder of the End Hunger Network and the national spokesman for Share Our Strength's No Kid Hungry campaign.

Bernie Glassman founded the Zen Community of New York, which later became Zen Peacemakers, an international order of social activists. A longtime Zen teacher, he also founded the Greyston Mandala, a network of for-profits and not-for-profits creating jobs, housing and programmes to support infividuals and their families on the path to self-sufficiency.

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