Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice

Edited transcripts of Shunryu Suzuki’s informal talks at Sokoji in San Francisco and at the Los Altos Zendo in the late 1960s, organised by his students Trudy Dixon and Marian Derby and introduced by his Dharma successor Richard Baker, with a preface by Huston Smith. The thirty-eight short chapters are arranged in three sections — Right Practice, Right Attitude and Right Understanding — and the Sōtō Zen attitude that gives the book its title sits at the front: that the mind of the beginner, open and not-knowing, is closer to awakening than the mind of the expert.

First published by Weatherhill in 1970, then carried forward by Shambhala from 2006, the book has remained the most-circulated Sōtō Zen text in English for half a century. It is short — about 138 pages — but the talks are deliberately repetitive and circular, returning to the same instructions on posture, breath, and intention from different angles. Suzuki died of cancer in December 1971, eighteen months after publication.

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.

Prologue, “Beginner’s Mind”

Contents

Reception

The most-circulated Sōtō Zen book in English and one of the founding texts of American Buddhism — required reading at most Zen centres in the lineage Suzuki founded (San Francisco Zen Center, Tassajara, Green Gulch). His student David Chadwick’s Crooked Cucumber adds the biographical layer the talks deliberately omit. Inside Japanese Sōtō the book is sometimes considered slightly too American; outside it, the simplicity is the point. The post-Suzuki succession crisis at SFZC and the Richard Baker controversies sit in the historical background but do not touch the book itself.

Frequently asked

What is Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind about?

Edited transcripts of Shunryu Suzuki’s informal talks at Sokoji and the Los Altos Zendo in the late 1960s, organised by his students Trudy Dixon and Marian Derby. The thirty-eight short chapters are arranged in three parts — Right Practice, Right Attitude and Right Understanding — and circle around the Sōtō Zen attitude that gives the book its title: that the beginner’s open, not-knowing mind is closer to awakening than the expert’s.

Who edited the book?

Trudy Dixon and Marian Derby edited Suzuki’s talks into chapters; Richard Baker, Suzuki’s American Dharma successor, wrote the Introduction; Huston Smith contributed the Preface. The book was first published by Weatherhill in 1970, eighteen months before Suzuki’s death in December 1971.

Why does it remain influential?

It is the most-circulated Sōtō Zen book in English and one of the founding texts of American Buddhism — required reading at most Zen centres in the lineage Suzuki founded (San Francisco Zen Center, Tassajara, Green Gulch). Inside Japanese Sōtō it is sometimes considered slightly too American; outside it, the simplicity is the point.