Zen Buddhism

This book discusses the problem everyone faces with depression and how to combat it through the Zen path with wisdom and meditation. It is a matter of being disciplined everyday with training. The Eightfold Path is discussed in this book. It is a list of rights to live by. Also, we discuss how we go for freedom in our lives. It is not by being sloppy, but merely it is a form of action we take where we could live our lives with a degree of focus and then free ourselves of depression.

Howard Fast began to formally practice Zen meditation after turning away from communism in 1956. The Art of Zen Meditation, originally published by the antiwar political collective Peace Press, in 1977, is the fruit of Fast’s study: a brief and instructive history of Zen Buddhism and its tenets, written with a simplicity that is emblematic of the philosophy itself. Fast’s study of Zen also inspired his popular Masao Masuto mystery series about a Zen Buddhist detective in Beverly Hills.

Americans and others in the West have certain expectations and images that come to mind when the word Buddhist comes up. Most people have seen the Dalai Lama on the news or in magazines, and he has almost become synonymous with Buddhism in general. The truth is that by far, the majority of the world's Buddhists are not bald Asian men in orange robes. Buddhists look like you or me--just normal people who try to fit the ideas developed by Buddha into normal modern life.