Access Today Waking Up To What You Do: A Zen Practice For Meeting Every Situation With Intelligence And Compassion Conceived By Diane Eshin Rizzetto Accessible Through Ebook

decent guide to the precepts, Fairly surfacelevel and therefore quite accessible, Writing is rarely great in these selfhelp/Zen crossovers, A truly great book. Practical and inspiring. The first time I read this book, I checked it out from the library, Then I went and bought a copy because I knew I'd want to read it again, So this is the second time around for me, and probably not the last, Her suggestions and explications of the precepts are easy to understand and apply, well, at least to figure out how you should apply them, Getting to application is tough, But it doesn't seem impossible to "wake up to what you do" the way she outlines, Very accessible book. I'd recommend it to anyone, Buddhism is very simple you need perspective to watch yourself in your emotional states, This book takes some case studies and also offers some buddhist precepts, As a meditator, I found that application of the precepts in different situations interesting, not for the new meditaor, . . a decent selfhelp book. Very good book to get one started practicing with the Buddhist precepts, Wow, I really am a curmudgeon, I saw nothing extraordinary in this book at all, It wasn't terrible, but I'd rather read Steve Hagen or Brad Warner, An indepth look at the buddhist precepts and the challenges of trying to embody them within the frameworks of our sticky, slippery, subtle human minds, A very practical book about Buddhism, Each chapter is devoted to a precept, and the explanations are practical and interesting, I will definitely be reading it again just to refresh my memory and reflect further on the author's points, . . This is a book that is not just read, it is absorbed and allowed to steep in your consciousness, The work in this book is meant to be practiced, There is a lifetime of exploration to be had in this book, When I read books by the Dalai Lama, Pema Chodron, or other Buddhists, I often think that I don't have enough time to devote to practice the suggestions, Then I found this book by Diane Eshin Rizzetto, She doesn't live in seclusion, I can see how to apply precepts to my life as it is now, not as I could if I were a cloistered nun,

This is my new favorite, This book is the most practical I have read yet, It is not a vehicle to teach you esoteric Tibetan words, texts, or dogma, but it contains eight precepts to help you become more conscious of the things you do and why you do them.
The centrality of moral practice, the direction of a blameless life is something that strikes all of us very early in the process, The immediate response is to tend to see these precepts as proscriptive, as though they are "Thou shalt nots", That is a misconception, they are instead guides to our deepest intentions, There is in them no expectation of perfection in practice they allow for our humanity but keeping them central to our own practice and indeed our own lives is transforming.
It is my own experience that in the process of daily meditation and contemplation and constant exposure to the Buddha's teachings the precepts almost insert themselves, Not in a clashing way but subtly so that we wake up one day finding that something we have always done in our daily stupour is just no longer possible for us.
The constant awareness of the principle of renunciation of the intention behind our behaviour leads gradually down the road of purification, This is not a moralistic stance but simply a practical one, The Buddha was right that meditation practice without morality at its heart is no practice at all, This is a great book to help guide us through the gate, at least I find it so when at this point in my own practice I see the precepts as much as its essence as anything else.
I want to know what they mean to me and create that place at my centre for them that will become my constant reference point Simple but effective advice for meeting every moment with mindfulness, and breaking through habitual reactions.
The distraction caused by TV, computers, radio, ipods, etc, don't allow us to listen to or organize our own thoughts, What do you think Sealed deal
I was thinking about changing my Roman Catholic beliefs to the spiritual zen Buddhism precepts and practices and started on the path with the relaxation response modern, western meditation and yoga.
I've read a couple of books on Buddhism but this one sealed the deal, Waking Up to What You Do is likely meant to be read as a fronttoback book however, I found that it is written in a way that one can jump around lessons chapters in the order that suits them.
These kinds of "practice" books are typically laid out in a way which the writer believes the student should experience each lesson, and this one is no different, While I particularly did not agree with the succession of each lesson, it didn't matter, I was able to jump to the ones I felt would benefit me most first and continue on to the others without any confusion,

If you're in to this kind of thing it's a great read and practice, Not only does the author give her explanation on how to practice each precept, she also includes the experiences and methods of some of her students, This is great, as it gives each precept multiple faces, There is not one correct way to practice Zen, There is not one correct way to approach and handle situations, Each moment is different for each person, This book allows the reader to understand these practices aren't going to be the same for everyone and that it's okay to have faults a nice reminder when many books like this do not leave much room for human error.
While Waking Up to What You Do is a fairly, quick read, it offers a practice of the Zen precepts that can be slowed down and repeated, Rizzetto describes the precepts, their place in Zen teachings and their purpose for augmenting Zazen or mindfulness meditation, She spends a little time differentiating between the application within a monastic community and their use for lay practitioners,
The rest of the book takes a chapter per precept to explore each one and set the reader up for an examination of their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors within the context of each one.
The book makes it easy for the student to take as cursory or as deep and reflective a pass with each one as they want,
As a student of Zen, I imagine that I will keep this book close at hand for multiple readings and find new layers of insight each time I open it.

One of the most practical Buddhist books I've ever read, Loved the chapter on working with the Dead Spot the moment just before the habitual response has kicked in, Really loved the individual chapters on working with each of the precepts observing what certain behaviors bring up for you and then using the precepts to dig deeper and see what happens when you stop that behavior.
Mind changing. This book was on my 'to read' because she was a student of Yoko, . and her books are my faves, Too bad this book is not even close, Maybe I'm a little too hard on Diane because she's Yoko's student, having higher expectations and all that, . . It's not really about the knowledge shared because it's really interesting but her writing style I really had difficulties finishing it, and honestly I skipped some parts here and there, I find myself picking this book up from time to time, just to refresh my memory, I found it quite inspiring, and realistic,
I love the way it's casually written, Definitely one of those books that's easy to pick up and skim for insight, Life is rising up to meet us at every moment, The question is: Are we

there to meet it or not Diane Rizzetto presents a simple but supremely effective practice for meeting every moment of our lives with mindfulness, using the Zen precepts as tools to develop a keen awareness of the motivations behind every aspect of our behaviorto "wake up to what we do"from moment to moment.
As we train in mindfulness of our actions, every situation of our lives becomes our teacher, offering priceless insight into what it really means to be happy, It's a simple practice with transformative potential, enabling us to break through our habitual reactions and to see clearly how our own happiness and wellbeing are intimately, inevitably connected to the happiness and wellbeing of everyone around us.
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