Wanting Enlightenment Is a Big Mistake: Teachings of Zen Master Seung Sahn

This is a great book. The teaching is simple,straight forward and clear. I recommended it to anyone who is interested in Buddha.

If you're predisposed to think Zen is esoteric and austere, you won't like this book. If you're drawn to the elegant (and admitedly a little esoteric) simplicity of Zen this is a great read you'll find yourself returning to...

Anyone who is interested in Zen will find the lightness and deft handling of the unanswerable questions will make sure they write their name in the front cover of this book. This is a wonderful follow up to Zen Master Seung Sahn's life and teachings.

Seung Sahn was a Zen master who had a distinctive, idiosyncratic approach to teaching, blending piercing insight and compassion with off-handed humor and unexpected approaches. This book offers many short lectures, or more accurately, transciptions of addresses Master Sahn gave in response to questions from students. Most of the "chapters" in the book are thus short (3-5 pages), with some very short sections (a paragraph) and some a little longer. This format provides an excellent and varied introduction to this important teacher and his skilfull approach to helping others understand themselves and their problems. The short chapter format makes the book an addictive read, although interested readers will probably find sections that they will want to linger over, reread, and meditate on for a long time. I have had this book for a while and still go back to it for inspiration and insight quite often. Sahn's responses are varied to meet the needs of the specific individual asking the question; thus, at times he answers a question by asking his own question and at others by telling an anecdote or humorous story. One of my favorite chapters relates Master Sahn's response to the question of whether abortion is right or wrong; reading his response illustrates a profound approach to deciding the moral questions that arise in our lives. Instead of creating a good/bad duality, he uses the question as a springboard from which he might reach a more ultimate and immediate issue. Judgments are avoided--only "every moment, save all sentient beings." It's that simple (and that difficult). Finding for myself a connection between the questions asked and the "conclusions" Sahn reaches has proved a very instructive journey. Often his answers are counterintuitive, or head-scratchingly strange, or downright hilarious. But whatever approach he chooses, his answers contain profound insights that anyone interested in Zen practice will find useful. I gave this book four stars (as opposed to five) because it is not as essential as Sahn's Compass of Zen... However, "Wanting Enlightenment" is highly recommended.

More of his delightful stories, right up there with his other book. highly recommended