Reddit reviews Zen Philosophy, Zen Practice

Thich Thien Tam's Buddhism of Wisdom and Faith gives a good overview, from a Pure Land perspective, of the two most dominant practical vocations of Vietnamese Buddhism: Thien (Zen) and Pure Land.

He practices a sort of rare lineage of tantric Pure Land, but generally, there are three recognized paths of practice in Vietnamese Buddhism: Thien, Pure Land (Tinh Do), or Tantra (Mat Tong). Thich Nhat Hanh would be an example of someone on the 'pure Thien' side, and most temples you run into are probably on the 'pure Pure Land' side, or a dual-practice tradition (like my own).

Thich Thien Tam also has a book on his Pure Land/Tantra dual-practice school, called The daily practices of Western Pureland Buddhism . If you google it, you can probably find the website for his root temple, and can probably get a free copy sent to you.

Thich Thanh Tu, who revitalized the ('pure Thien) Truc Lam school of Vietnamese Thien, has his novice monastic curriculum posted online, which is an interesting read, but probably not helpful unless you have a deeper understanding of what those texts referenced are. I think we will be seeing more and more of his work translated into English soon, since his disciples have started making their presence better known.

Unfortunately, until quite recently, outside of Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Buddhism has remained largely insular. The biggest major contribution we had in the west early on was Thich Thien-An's Zen Practice, Zen Philosophy, but he was working in a context where it made most sense to him to present Buddhism to westerners almost exactly how the Japanese had, using the same nomenclature and concepts.

If you have an Academia.edu account, this paper, starting on page 22, has a full English translation of Emperor Trần Nhân Tông's 13th century Zen text, Cư Trần Lạc Đạo Phú (Dwelling in the World With the Joy of Practicing the Dharma).

My favorite. http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Philosophy-Practice-Thich-Thien-An/dp/091354633X/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368363438&sr=8-1&keywords=Zen+philosophy

Great http://www.abuddhistlibrary.com/Buddhism/H%20-%20World%20Religions%20and%20Poetry/World%20Religions/Taoism/Articles%20and%20Texts/The%20Hua%20Hu%20Ching/Hua%20Hu%20Ching.htm

Excellent. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_6?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=tao+te+ching+by+lao+tzu&sprefix=Tao+te%2Cstripbooks%2C222

These are good starting points. The first one captures my experience better than any other written words. I also reccomend psychedelics if you use them with care and a mature approach. Nice to meet you. As to optimism, I was answering the question.