I am a Buddhist, have studied formally in all three main branches of Buddhism and was a monk during the most intense part of my study. I own hundreds of Buddhist texts, and if I
could
only own one book, this would be it. This is absolutely the clearest expression
of Enlightenment (living fully, consciously in the moment) that I've encountered. Foyan is wonderously illuminating, avoids
reliance on koans and historical cases (has a few references to them), and
instead, simply expresses Realization on his own, directly, brilliantly, in
every sentence of this book. A previous reviewer wrote (in his excellent review)
"Logical contradictions are purposely employed to get you to see something
beyond logic", while there are a few statements like that, that is a slight
misunderstanding of why most of the apparently "contadictions" are
there (with due respects to the reviewer, no insult is intended). Instead these
"contradictions" are direct expressions of the Truth of Reality, and
that requires 1) that you see directly and don't confuse the labels for the
reality itself and 2) that everything be seen simultaneously from both sides
(the relative or functional view and the absolute). So a statement such as
"you must have nonseeing right in seeing" or"all that is necessary is that there is no hearer or heard when you hear" is presenting both sides, not negating one with the other. However, there are statements such as "the ancients told you.. all sounds are Buddha's voice... You have misunderstood, supposing that all sounds are actually the voice of Buddha" that appears to be a contradiction, but again this is pointing out (POINTING not explaining) the difference between the understanding and the perception of that truth. I've said much too much, the Zen Master would be beating me over the head with the stick by now. You will enjoy this book, and you will hear the voice of Wisdom speaking across 9 centuries of time, if you get this book, you'll need no others, and eventually you can give this one away. My Highest recommendation.
The
Zen Teaching of Huang Po: On the Transmission of Mind
Mindfulness
in Plain English by Venerable Henepola Gunaratana