THE ESSENCE OF CHAN by Guo Gu

I was once at a Chan Centre in London for a full day meditation practice and it was then I first heard about Guo Gu and his teachings.
His book goes deep into concepts and practices such as:

• Embracing adversities

• Recognising, adapting & creating cause and condition

• Noneseeking

• Freedom

I can’t do a better job than him explaining each of them, reason why I recommend this read and I’ll leave you with two of my favourite fragments below:

“Wisdom means the ability to see the world as it actually exists, interconnected and free, without being clouded by our own self-referential preferences of likes and dislikes, judgments and categories, words and language.”

“Cultivate nonseeking by first learning to distinguish, in your relations with the world, between need and want, should and could. Know that you lack nothing. You are originally free from fixed limitations of self and from fleeting vexations. Your true nature contains everything; there is no need to seek outside yourself.”