From Buddhist Publishing Group

Buddhist Publishing Group (BPG) was formed in 1983 and published a paper version of  Buddhism Now from 1989 until 2007.

As well as publishing Buddhism Now, BPG has produced numerous books and booklets, and distributed over 110,000 free pamphlets. Other BPG activities have included running Buddhist workshops and retreats, and an annual Buddhist Summer School in Leicester from 1989 until 2006.

Buddhism Now is published by the Buddhist Publishing Group and is funded, in part, from the sale of its books.

Don’t Take Your Life Personally by Ajahn Sumedho

Ajahn Sumedho urges us to trust in awareness and to experience for ourselves genuine liberation from mental anguish and suffering, in the way the Buddha himself did two and a half thousand years ago.

Mindfulness or awareness is knowing, isn’t it? It is a direct knowing, immanent here and now. It is being fully present, attentive, to this present moment as is. But defining mindfulness tends to make it into something — and then it is no longer mindfulness, is it? Mindfulness is not a thing; it is a recognition, an intuitive awareness. It is awareness without grasping. With this recognition, we have perspective on the conditions that we experience in the present — our thoughts, identities, and the conditioning we have.

Ajahn Sumedho

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Buddhist Publishing Group, Published: 2010, 420 pages, available as both Paperback and Kindle.

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The Embossed Tea Kettle
Orate Gama and other works of Hakuin Zenji
by Zen Master Hakuin 

Translated from the Japanese
by R.D.M. Shaw, D.D.

Though the earth is hard, tread on it softly! Great things are destroyed by little things. If you are careless about little things, you will accomplish nothing. Everybody — Wake up!

Zen Master Hakuin

New edition abridged and revised by Diana St Ruth.

And not only were my illnesses healed, but also those things which were difficult to understand, those things which were difficult to enter into or penetrate, and which until then I had been unable to grasp with my hands or feet, or get my teeth into. I now penetrated them intuitively, right to their roots and down to their depths.

Zen Master Hakuin ‘The Embossed Tea Kettle’

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Perfect Wisdom: Prajnaparamita Texts
Translated by Edward Conze

The Short Prajnaparamita Texts were composed in India between 100 BC and AD 600, containing well known texts such as the Perfection of Wisdom in 700 lines, the Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra.

Buddhist writer and translator Edward Conze (1904—1979) devoted around thirty years of his life to translating the Perfection of Wisdom sutras (Prajnaparamita). His pioneering translations of these Mahayana texts include, The Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom: With the Divisions of the Abhisamayalankara, and The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines, and Its Verse Summary, as well as this collection of the Short Prajnaparamita Texts.

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Buddhist Publishing Group, Published: 1973, 2003, and 2022, Paperback, 284 pages.

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Zen Teaching of Instantaneous Awakening

by Master Hui Hai

Rendered into English by John Blofeld Foreword by Charles Luk.
This eighth-century classic is a complete translation of Hui Hai’s teachings. He was one of the early Chan/Zen masters (along with Ma Tsu and Huang Po) following on from Hui Neng, the Sixth Patriarch.

John Blofeld, a noted Buddhist writer and translator, was one of the few Englishmen to have experienced life in Chinese Buddhist temples and monasteries prior to the Communist revolution. His love of China and knowledge of Buddhism enabled him to translate the texts with feeling and insight.

‘Once a man who practised Chan asked Hui Hai: “It is said that mind is identical with the Buddha, but which of these is really the Buddha?” Hui Hai: “What do you suppose is not the Buddha? Point it out to me!” As there was no answer, the Master added: “If you comprehend (the mind), the Buddha is omnipresent to you; but if you do not awaken to it, you will remain astray and distant from him for ever.”’

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Buddhist Publishing Group Published: 1962, 1987, 188 pages, Paperback and Kindle.

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Experience Beyond Thinking by Diana St Ruth

A practical guide to Buddhist meditation with easy to follow exercises. The reflections of an ordinary practitioner.

If you want to learn how to meditate, this is the book for you.

Have the courage to let a thought slip by and not chase after it. Not clinging to thought, not rejecting it, the mind will open to a natural awareness. And awareness moves where life moves, not where hopes, fears, and wishes move. Come away from the wandering dreamy mind into the reality of the moment and cling to nothing. Be totally free. This is a distinct possibility for you, for me, and for anyone who has the courage to trust life, forego the past, and allow the moment to be itself.

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Buddhist Publishing Group, Published: 2008, 1992,1996, 2009. 172 pages, Paperback and Kindle.

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Fingers and Moons by Trevor Leggett

With many varied analogies, stories and incidents, Trevor Leggett points to the truth beyond words, beyond explanations and beyond methods. Indeed, it is ‘a finger pointing to the moon’.

Trevor Leggett (1914 – 2000) has been a leading writer on Zen Buddhism in the West. He lived for a considerable time in Japan and was the first foreigner to obtain the Sixth Dan (senior teachers degree) in judo from Kodokan. 

The well-known Zen Buddhist phrase ‘the finger pointing at the moon’ refers to the means and the end, and the possibility of mistaking one for the other. Trevor Leggett says, ‘the forms are the methods and they are very important as pointing fingers, but if we forget what they are for and they become, so to speak, the goal in their own right, then our progress is liable to stop. And if it stops, it retrogresses.’ On the other hand there are those who say ‘with considerable pride, “I don’t want fingers or methods. I want to see the moon directly, directly . . . to see the moon directly . . . no methods or pointing.” But in fact they don’t see it! It’s easy to say.’

Trevor Leggett

Trevor Leggett wrote well-known books on the subject as well as many books on Zen, amongst which are A First Zen Reader, The Warrior Koans, Zen and the Ways, Yoga and Zen, and The Old Zen Master. He was head of the BBC Japanese World Service for 24 years.

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Buddhist Publishing Group, Published: 1988, reprint 2011, Paperback, 144 pages.

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Understanding Karma and Rebirth: A Buddhist Perspective

by Diana St Ruth

Understanding Karma and Rebirth is a perspective on the actions we take and the effects of those actions. It includes meditation exercises to go beyond the concepts we hold of birth and death and to live from the unborn moment.

Diana St Ruth

In Understanding Karma and Rebirth, Diana St Ruth goes beyond the concepts of birth and death. With compelling narrative, exercises, and meditations, she explores this Buddhist natural law of karma, offering us an understanding of how our karma is key to our behaviour and the way we operate in the world. The law of karma is the law of our selves, the law of our inner lives. This book is a key to understanding ourselves at the deepest level.

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Buddhist Publishing Group, Published: 2008, Paperback, 216 pages.

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Teachings of a Buddhist Monk

by Ajahn Sumedho

Modern, practical teachings from one of the oldest Buddhist traditions. Ajahn Sumedho’s wisdom and humour bring us right to the heart of meditation from the perspective of Theravada Buddhism.

In Teachings of a Buddhist Monk Ajahn Sumedho’s wisdom and humour bring us right to the heart of Buddhist meditation and Theravada Buddhism.

From the foreword by Jack Kornfield

Ajahn Sumedho was ordained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand in 1967 and trained under the guidance of the highly respected Thai teacher, Ajahn Chah. He was the abbot of Amaravati Buddhist monastery in England for many years, but has recently returned to Thailand. His latest book is Don’t Take Your Life Personally.

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Buddhist Publishing Group, Published: 1990/2001
Paperback, 148 pages, and Kindle.

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The Old Zen Master 

by Trevor Leggett

Stories, parables, and examples have been a favoured way of conveying spiritual truths since time immemorial, and Trevor Leggett was a master at it. He had the knack of pointing out the spiritual implications of sometimes very ordinary, daily events, which make it easy for us to relate to.

Zen sitting is not some sort of operation to be performed. It is going into one’s true original nature before father or mother were born. The self seeks to grasp the self, but it is already the self, so why should it go to grasp the self? Look into it. Where was it then? Where is it now? When life ends, where does it go? When you feel you cannot look any more, look and see how that inability to look appears and disappears. As you look and see how the looking arises and goes, satori, realization, will arise of itself.

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Buddhist Publishing Group, Published: 1987, reprint 2010, Paperback 194 pages

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