In this series of questions and answers by a living Dharma master (Theravada, Chan, and Mahamudra traditions) and his students over the last ten years, readers may encounter a teaching that's unusually clear, candid, and compassionate. This extended collective dialogue is especially recommended for those who would rather cut through the exotic trappings that often surround Buddhist teachings in order to get to their untimely gist, which is their practical value here and now. The selected conversations cover topics of general interest for everyday life as well as specific instructions for meditators and practitioners. In four sections they present the noble path of Dharma, explain the Buddhist understanding of how the mind works, illustrate with many examples how this understanding applies to daily living, and discuss several tools this path puts in people's hands to enable them to find their own nature. Shanjian's unique teaching style reflects his training as biologist and psychologist in the US, his learning from legendary Buddhist masters such as Narada Mahathera and Nyanaponika Thera and, most important of all, his direct experience of the truth of the path as outlined by the Buddha. Combining his first-hand knowledge of the Dharma's Eastern roots with the down-to-earth, no-nonsense approach favored by Western audiences, Shanjian's replies range from the iconoclastic to the deeply moving as they open a straight and level path to access the Dharma in a way that makes sense to contemporary readers.
About the Author: Shanjian Dashi was born in England, trained as a psychologist and biologist in California, and did research with Leon Festinger at the New York School for Social Research. After rejecting the ways of our Western consumer society, and prompted by his discovery of Dharma teachings that confirmed his scientific findings on visual perception, he encountered his guides Nyanaponika Thera and Narada Maha Thera in Sri Lanka. It was there that Nyanaponika Thera persuaded him of the importance of deeply understanding Right Attention and Right Energy and Narada Maha Thera showed him the essence of Abhidharma, with the idea that, whereas modern psychology could explain perfectly well with cognitive intelligence why the mind works as it does, Buddha Dharma could show how to find the truth through direct experience -a confluence that was absolutely essential for the new world. After fifteen years as a Theravadin, as an arahat unawakened to the Primordial State, Shanjian sought without expectations and received Chan transmission in Kunming (China), after which he reintegrated the Five Houses of Chan along with Zongmi's Huayan model. For thirty years he has taught all the basic Dharma paths at the Mahabodhi Sunyata Seminary in Spain, stressing the transcendental unity underlying the manifold Dharma practices available for all beings: a unified Buddhism without dogmas, ceremonies, or rituals, with emphasis on the depth of all teachings from the simplicity of Chan to the magnificence of Vajrayana, without compromises, without separating apparently different paths, and without straying from the true Dharma spirit.