Reddit reviews Two Zen Classics: The Gateless Gate and The Blue Cliff Records

Two Zen Classics is a wonderful translation and background on The Gateless Gate and The Blue Cliff Record. The translations are accessible and the background information is helpful without being too on the nose to drive your analytical mind to overwhelm your ability to practice the koans. I'd recommend it without reservation.

You can find some books that might be considered religious about meditation, like Zen stuff, that are actually more like meditation exercises. Zen Training is a good one. Two Zen Classics is also good if your intrested in zen.

Introduction to Zen Buddhism was my first book on Zen, and it was an interesting read with some solid context to the whole Zen teachings, written by Suzuki, who introduced Zen to the western world back in the day


Currently I am reading Two Zen Classics: The Gateless Gate and The Blue Cliff Records which is a solid read after the introduction with many of the well known koans

He has another book which is interesting too: https://www.amazon.com/Two-Zen-Classics-Gateless-Records/dp/1590302826/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1524441513&sr=8-1&keywords=two+zen+classics

For instructions on how to meditate, I do like what Katsuki Sekida says about the breath and the posture, but in relation to what to do with the toughts that come up during meditation, I like the tecnique that Charlotte Joko Beck describes in her 2 books:

http://b-ok.xyz/book/896012/9548eb

http://b-ok.xyz/book/967966/ece399

You can go to page 25 of the book "everyday zen" for one of the chapters where she describes the technique.

I'm interested in a paper copy. Is this the translation you'd recommend?

Sekida

https://www.amazon.com/Two-Zen-Classics-Gateless-Records/dp/1590302826/

I don't know how much religious stuff he added though, so you'd want to approach the text with some skepticism.

Blyth's translation in hard copy is running 50-100 these days, and is out of print... and the publisher is out of business. I contacted the American distributor, and they don't know who owns the rights.