Zen Heart, Zen Mind: The Teachings of Zen Master Ama Samy

I started reading this book while on my first retreat with Ama Samy in Belgium and found the writing and teaching very creative, compassionately provoking and transformative. Going through some tumultuous times, I particularly remember being touched by the chapter "Heart Broken, Heart of Love," illustrating first steps of Enlightenment as "brokenness" (kkaech'im in Korean Zen tradition). "One's heart has to be broken for true love to be born. Betrayal, abandonment, misunderstanding, failure and brokenness are the doors to the heart of love."I would recommend the book to newcomers and longtime meditators alike. Ama Samy's discussion of the Zen proverb "Before Enlightenment, mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers. During Enlightenment, mountains are not mountains, rivers are not rivers. After Enlightenment, mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers." helps clarify the relationship between Zen unitive experience and down-to-earth just-being. He encourages his readers, "We need to penetrate deeply into the experience of just-being to enter the dimension of beyond-just-being. As you deepen your Zen practice, you enter this dimension of beyond-just-being, Emptiness." When thoroughly steeped in that dimension, he continues, "there is a further step, which is the revelation that comes as an 'overturning of the base,' a world-shattering moment when the old world order passes away and a new world is born. We re-enter the dimension of just-being. It is in that instant that our Original Face is revealed to us."