Books in Brief

Outrider
Anne Waldman
La Alameda Press, 2006
178 pp.; $18.00 (paper)”Outrider is a line of demarcation. It’s words-obsession for the honor, dignity of a mind ill at ease, restless, jumping from desk to orally standing-at-attention, examining itself. A maker of poetry.” This is Anne Waldman’s first of many descriptions of the poetic Outrider tradition celebrated in this collection of poems, essays, and interviews.Outrider is a term she adopted in 1974 to capture the spirit of the poetry program she founded with Allen Ginsberg at Naropa University; for Waldman, Outrider is a lineage that extends back to Walt Whitman and includes all of those American poets who resisted the trends of the day in search of something new.

Chöd in the Ganden Tradition:
The Oral Instructions of Kyabje Zong Rinpoche
Kyabje Zong Rinpoche;
Snow Lion Publications, 2006
218 pp.; $18.95 (paper)

The central practice of the Tibetan teaching system of Chöd involves visualizing a ritual feast in which demons are invited to devour the body of the practitioner and cut away at ego-attachments and the fears that perpetuate them. The ideal setting for this practice is a charnel ground–home to sundry demons–among rotting corpses. In this new volume from Snow Lion, the great modern Tibetan master Kyabje Zong Rinpoche provides detailed instructions for the practice of Chöd along with bone-chilling and often humorous tales of Chöd masters and their students.

Tibetan Sound Healing
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
Sounds True, 2006
96 pp., CD; $19.95 (cloth)

Bön, the indigenous religion of Tibet, has its most prominent ambassador to the West in Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. With this book and CD learning program he instructs us about the healing power of the Five Warrior Syllables of the Bön tradition–A, OM, HUNG, RAM, and DZA, representing the body, speech, mind, virtuous qualities, and actions of enlightenment. According to Wangyal, by singing the warrior syllables and focusing on the corresponding energy centers in the body, we can overcome obstacles, purify the body, and “connect with the clear and open space of our being.”

Hakuin on Kensho: The Four Ways of Knowing
Edited with Commentary by Albert Low
Shambhala Pub., Inc., 2006
128 pp., $14.95 (paper)

The Japanese Zen Master Hakuin (1689–1769) understood kensho, the experience of waking up to one’s own true nature, to be absolutely essential. “If a person who has not achieved kensho says he is a follower of Zen,” Hakuin once wrote, “he is an outrageous fraud, a swindler pure and simple.” Four Ways of Knowing of an Awakened Person, Hakuin’s short text on crucial instructions for the experienced practitioner, is an invaluable tool for zen students and is available here along with an insightful introduction and extensive line-by-line commentary by Albert Low.

Awaken in the Wild: Mindfulness in Nature as a Path of Self-Discovery
Mark Coleman
Inner Ocean Publishing, 2006
224 pp., $14.95 (paper)

The teachings and practices in Awake in the Wild invite us to meditate in the most traditional Buddhist setting, the forest. With nearly forty guided meditations, Mark Coleman draws upon his experience as a student and teacher in the Insight Meditation tradition to guide us to an acute intimacy with the natural world. Writing with a clear love for the wilderness, Coleman encourages us to apply mindful attention to the open spaces outside our cars, offices, and homes, where he suggests we will “discover our profound inter-connection with the web of life.”