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Pure Heart, Enlightened Mind: The Zen Journals and Letters of an Irish Woman in Japan
 
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Pure Heart, Enlightened Mind: The Zen Journals and Letters of an Irish Woman in Japan (Paperback)

by Maura O'Halloran (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Thorsons; New Ed edition (16 Nov 1998)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0722537859
  • ISBN-13: 978-0722537855
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 450,187 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Synopsis
At the age of 24, Maura O'Halloran travelled to Japan, where she began to study Zen, first in an old temple tucked away in the back streets of Tokyo, then in a remote temple in Northern Japan. One thousand days later she received her dharma transmission. Planning to establish a Zen centre in Ireland, she was travelling back when she was tragically killed in a road accident. She was 27 years old. She is now venerated as a Buddhist saint. This collection of letters and journals, with its lively, sharp and amusing observations, eloquently brings to life the rigours, hardships and ultimate joy of the life of a Zen Buddhist.

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Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful, enlightening book, 25 Jul 2000
By A Customer
This book is the kind of book that touches the soul, and makes you realise that there is so much beauty in the world. This book made me cry and laugh (sometimes simultaneously!), and there are lessons/examples for us all in Soshins writings. Wonderful.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A quiet reverence for life, 13 Jan 2004
The diary entries and letters of a young Irish Woman Maura O'Halloran, written while she received Zen training and worked towards "enlightenment in Japanese Zen Monasteries. While not intentionally written to be read by an audience these personal accounts of one woman's unusual and courageous life make a fascinating read. Maura begins her writings as a "normal" young Irish Woman with a wish to travel to Japan. Having been accepted to enter training her diaries chronicle her daily life as she travels down the path towards enlightenment - begging in the freezing cold, zazen (sitting meditation), sleep deprivation, cleaning, cooking, her evolving mantras, lessons for study and her relationships with her fellow monks. Smattered with Japanese words the book shows how Maura's awareness of both herself and the world around her develops, without ever losing her sense of humour. This document is all the more markedly poignant for the fact that she met an untimely death at 27 in a bus accident in Thailand while on her way home to Ireland.
Part record of a interesting life, part meditation. In reading this linear journey the reader imparts on something of a journey themselves, as Maura ponders silence or lets grievances go one cannot help but think of the relevance of her lessons in one's own life. This book may lead to fantasies about giving it all up, and will undoubtedly leave you feeling a renewed quiet reverence for your own life.
The Artist
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