The Ceasing Of Notions

The texts from the Dunhuang Caves, discovered in the mid-twentieth century, are the Zen equivalent of the Dead Sea Scrolls--early texts previously unknown for centuries.Ceasing of Notionsis one such text. The text takes a unique form: a a dialogue or series of questions and answers between two imaginary figures, master Nyuri and his disciple Emmon, in which the disciple boldly and tenaciously asks follow-up question after follow-up question. And these questions prove to be the reader’s very own. Morinaga makes this brilliant and pithy text even more accessible to readers who, like the student in the dialogue, have many questions to ask about their own search for the Way of the Buddha, and their possible attainment of enlightenment. This volume also includes a generous selection from Morinaga’s autobiography. In this very personal, sometimes humorous and ironical reflection, Morinaga Roshi explains why and how, as a young man full of doubt and uncertainly, he chose to devote himself to the Zen monastic practice. In that practice he did not find immediate enlightenment but through long hours of meditation, self inquiry, and the guidance and stimulus of his teacher Zuigan Roshi he came to see that he might, after all, let cease his delusive thinking and awaken to Truth.