Books and audio

Format: Paperback, 94 pages
Publication date: 31 March 2009
Publisher: Accarias/L’Originel
ISBN: 9782863161678 
On sale at Pic Lumineux, €15 + postage

«For me, pétanque is more than a game, more than a sport and more than a competition. It is a fabulous opportunity to develop exceptional qualities as a person and allows players to communicate better with the world and, above all, with themselves.»
Sando Kaisen

France currently has 400,000 licensed pétanque players and just as many Buddhist practitioners. What is the connection between these two disciplines? Sando Kaisen, a French Zen monk, provides the answer to this question in this original book.
A supporter of top-level players whom he considers to be true artists, and a keen observer of major national and international competitions, Sando Kaisen has developed an original perspective on this popular game, which originated in La Ciotat at the beginning of the century. 
In light of the great teachings of Zen Buddhism and his personal experience, Sando Kaisen introduces us to the main aspects of the «body-mind» that manifest themselves in the pétanque player: emotions, stress, mental disturbance, desire to win... However, it is through proper concentration (both peaceful and dynamic), forgetting the «body-mind», making it lucid by entering into the great Presence, focusing on the inner breath, that the pétanque player – like any human being – becomes alive, creative and spontaneous, drawing on the natural momentum that dwells within each of us. 
Sando Kaisen develops these different aspects: attention, lucidity, presence, posture, breathing; all words familiar to boules players and Buddhists who, without knowing it, come together in the field of self-knowledge. 
In the tradition of Eugen Herrigel's famous book Zen in the Art of Archery, Sando Kaisen's treatise elevates pétanque to the rank of an ethic and reveals the astonishing parallels between the arena of the game and that of our own minds... 
Sando Kaisen, Alain Krystaszek was born in Noyon in the Oise region in 1952. In 1968, he became a disciple of the famous Zen Master Taisen Deshimaru, from whom he received ordination in 1979 under the name Sando Kaisen («solitary hermit in the deep mountains»). Passionate about martial arts, he decided to undertake a trip to China. He has been playing pétanque for nearly 30 years. He now lives in France in his monastery in the Dordogne.

Format: Paperback, 126 pages 
Publication date: 25 January 2011 
Publisher: Accarias/L’Originel 
ISBN: 9782863161852 
On sale at Pic Lumineux, €15 + postage

With his penetrating insight and freedom of expression, his strong and clear language, Sando Kaisen reminds us of the old Zen patriarchs. Here he presents a lively and incisive teaching, not only on Zen but also on our everyday lives. For him, as for his master Taisen Deshimaru, the Way of Buddha is more than a philosophy or a religion; it is the actualisation of «enlightened thinking». Enlightenment, in fact, is not achieved, it is actualised, because every human being is endowed with the pure Spirit of Essence. 
Zazen, silent and selfless sitting, is the secret of Zen. Through correct posture, breathing and vigilant attention, we free ourselves from all concepts, images and searching. Zazen is the immediate expression of our Nature, perfect in every moment of our daily lives. As the practitioner experiences this naked lucidity, which is the natural Light reflecting itself, there is no longer any judgement or particular thought within them. We then enter into the time of dynamic Presence, an empty and creative space where reality comes into being. Thus, we must simply continue to see clearly into our Nature without fixing ourselves anywhere. 
Kaisen shares this with us with great power, making reading this book an experience in itself.

Format: Hardcover, 160 pages 
Publication date: 1 March 2013 
Publisher: Tarma 
ISBN: 9782924157022 
Out of stock

Here is an original book about wine and the relationship between man and wine... Like human beings, vines have a «before» and an «after». The character of wine is enhanced by the depth and richness of the terroir; by the soil, the exposure of the land, the sunshine, the wind, the seasons, and the proximity to the sea or mountains. Just as the terroir improves the grape, the wisdom acquired during life improves man. 
«We become better with age, better with others and with ourselves. It is not about being better than someone else or wanting to please. It is simply about being oneself. A child is as he is, and an old man is as he is. Throughout their life of maturation, the elderly try to preserve the child they once were while acquiring wisdom and understanding. Good wine is like this: as it ages, it retains its childlike spirit and indefinable freshness, as if, through time, the timeless had never left it. 
For thousands of years, monks and winegrowers have followed in each other's footsteps, simultaneously bringing forth the temporal from the eternal and making the eternal felt in the temporal, as an offering and an invitation to drink. The same is true of the transmission of Zen since the historical Buddha: during meditation, the 21st-century man sits in his own heart-mind, which is that of all Buddhas, patriarchs and masters, and in that heart he meets them all. 
What we taste with wine is the entire universe contained in a transparent and fragile glass.»

Format: 224 pages
Publication date: 10 October 2014
Publisher: Tarma
ISBN: 9782924157091 
Out of stock

«The aim of this book is to encourage everyone to cook and eat mindfully. It doesn't matter what you cook or eat, what utensils you use or how you do it, the most important thing is to do everything in the great Presence.
«I will attempt to present the results of forty years of experience, study and reflection on cooking. This will be an opportunity for me to express what I imagine to be the innermost thoughts of some of the great chefs whom I respect. 
Some key questions will underpin my approach:
What do we know about the art of cooking?
What do we know about the mysterious force that inspires such creativity, beauty and sincerity in these artists?
Are we aware of the gift they are giving us?
Are we aware of the gifts that nature, living beings and the surrounding matter bestow upon us?
Do we know what a man truly is?
Does he himself know why he eats?
Through cooking and the art of eating, is it possible to better understand our role on earth?
I hope these questions will whet your appetite, and I wish you bon appétit! 
Sando Kaisen

Format: CD, Duration: 51 minutes
Publication date: 28 August 2001
Publisher: Univox

This CD allows you to touch the heart of Buddha's teachings and the Transmission of the Patriarchs. Zen is about looking at everything with a clear mind. Zen is about accessing the highest dimension of consciousness based on: non-mind, non-thought and non-attachment.
«The deluded mind revolves around the lotus. The enlightened mind makes the lotus revolve around it. Zen is zazen: the correct posture of the Buddha. Legs crossed, spine straight and eyes horizontal. Thinking with the whole body through correct sitting. Zen cannot be understood through books and lectures; it is about discovering within ourselves the origin of manifested life.»

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Format: CD, Duration: 42’30»
Publication date: 28 August 2001 
Publisher: Univox

«I offer a simple method of meditation that is accessible to everyone, beyond any religious tradition. Meditation is not the art of meditating. It is the return to silence of thoughts, to peace of mind, and naturally leads to the expansion of consciousness.»
This is not about relaxation or a method aimed at improving health, but rather about learning pure meditation, as transmitted by the great sages and meditators of the past and present. Here we will address three important points: posture, breathing and state of mind. To meditate means not to meditate. Not meditating means letting be what is. Meditation is an act of pure gratuitousness. Great Liberation cannot be achieved through complicated techniques. It is achieved in simplicity, in the simple act of breathing and forgetting oneself in the original breath.

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Format: CD, Duration: 73 minutes
Publication date: 21 January 2002
Publisher: Univox

This CD, inspired by nature, focuses on the spirit of faith, the silence of being and the beauty of life; it sheds light on human nature and our relationship with the visible and invisible world.
«The greatness of the earth is the greatness of my body. The immensity of the sky is the immensity of the spirit that animates me. With every breath, with every gesture, I recreate the earth and the sky. We are the ceaseless creators of the flow of life. With every step, I create and renew myself.»

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Format: CD, Duration: 62 minutes
Publication date: 15 April 2002
Publisher: Univox

This CD is a recording of mondos (question and answer sessions) with Sando Kaisen. It covers many essential questions, particularly regarding enlightenment, ordination, rules, and mindfulness practice.

What is important?
What is consciousness?
What is our true Nature?
What is the spirit of the Way?
What is suffering? …

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Format: CD, Duration: 30 minutes 
Publication date: 15 April 2002 
Publisher: Univox

Teaching during meditation. 
«All phenomena are empty of substance. Even though the body appears to be born and die, in emptiness there is neither birth nor death. Emptiness is eternal reality without beginning or end. The posture of zazen must reflect eternal reality, which transcends illusion and enlightenment.» 
The teachings are recorded directly during a meditation session and then remixed without modification. During zazen, Sando Kaisen transmits the teaching to practitioners sitting silently facing the wall. They receive his words directly in the depth of zazen, without analysing or commenting on what they hear. In this way, the teaching penetrates the whole being without interference from the personal mind. Listeners to this CD are invited to listen with deep attention, without any particular state of mind, as during meditation.

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Format: CD, Duration: 43 minutes
Publication date: 24 May 2002
Publisher: Univox

«Becoming a disciple requires several qualities: knowing how to recognise that what happens to us is our own doing and stopping blaming others. Knowing how to obey and trust. Being sincere and courageous. Knowing how to be attentive, and above all, putting into practice what we have understood. When the mind and body are open, then the universe visits us. Knowing how to say yes is very important: yes to the infinite Eternal, yes to the happiness of others, yes to surrendering to Being, to the essence of the spirit.»

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Format: CD, Duration: 40 minutes
Publication date: 24 May 2002
Publisher: Univox

«In death I shall walk as I have walked through countless roads. I have walked in joy, I have walked in sorrow, in sickness, I have walked in old age; and in death I shall walk, like the One who is as he is, the Thus Come One. There is time, then there is space. There is space beyond the space we have limited to our lives: it is infinity. There is also time beyond the time we have limited: it is eternity. Eternal infinity is Being as it is, it is the Thus Come One. This is what we, human beings, are: owners who always want more; but the owner is only a dream without any reality, without substance, he is only a reflection in the mirror. Without light, darkness cannot be illuminated and ignorance cannot be awakened. The new owner is born from an image and not from a stable and permanent entity: to be born again. Whereas to be resurrected, to awaken or to enter nirvana or parinirvana is to be born into the new, to be born into the new and not again.»

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Format: CD, Duration: 44 minutes
Publication date: 17 June 2002
Publisher: Univox

«Life only has meaning if I give it meaning. Being alive, the essence of everything: that is the meaning I must give to my life. What is God? What is eternal in me? Who is the one who thinks he is? Everyone thinks they are, but who is the thinker? Where is he? Have you seen him? ... The greatest victory that man can achieve is to allow himself to be welcomed into the Essence of God, into his own essence.»

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Format: CD, Duration: 38 minutes
Publication date: 17 June 2002
Publisher: Univox

«The consciousness of the universe is our own consciousness. Zazen, the final stage of human existence, is to return to the expression of fundamental cosmic power in its simplicity, purity and reality, and to extinguish the volition of the mind. There are no heroes on the Path. True courage is not to follow thought too much. It is to step outside of construction and protection and go where everything is uncertain. Someone once said, «So what? To have walked all this time, to have lived countless lives, to have been born at the same time as the universe, only to end up in meditation and disappear! Does that make sense? ...».»
These teachings were recorded directly during a meditation session and then remixed without modification.

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Format: CD, Duration: 60 minutes
Publication date: 17 June 2002
Publisher: Univox

«Love is useless as it is in the essence of the spirit; that is why it incarnates in man to be put into action. All beings are fundamentally good at their origin. Man, cut off from the great wisdom, from Alaya consciousness, is limited to his human wisdom as long as he has not enlightened love, limited to time and space, to Amala consciousness as temporary as the body. Man suffers because he is unaware of his origin. Unaware of his origin, he seeks happiness elsewhere than in his origin. There is a bridge that connects the conscious to the unconscious, that connects ordinary thought to infinite thought.»

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Format: CD, Duration: 53 minutes
Publication date: 21 January 2003
Publisher: Univox

Zen words. Zen verses to enlighten the mind. Words from the pure Zen tradition that speak to the depths of the soul. The music forms a bridge between two verses. «Do not let dust enter your eyes. I beg you to be yourself, without thought. Then you will enlighten everything.».

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Format: CD, Duration: 40 minutes
Publication date: 21 January 2003
Publisher: Univox

The Sutras (Zen chants) are original recordings of Taisen Deshimaru's voice. The texts are taken from traditional Zen works: Dogen's «Fukanzazengi» and Sekito-Kisen's «Sandokai». Accompanying the hermit on the path to the temple, Sando Kaisen invites us to enter the reality of a sound universe that makes us feel the immediacy of what is being experienced. A walk in the mountains, a falling tree, a storm, a fire, a man crying... powerful images punctuated by the depth of the sutras and short, dense and striking texts from the writings of the great Zen masters.
«Phenomena and essence fit together perfectly. When one concentrates one's efforts with a single mind, that in itself is to penetrate the Way. Practice-realisation is pure by nature; moving forward is a matter of everyday life. Humbly, to those who seek the Way, I say: do not waste the present moment.»

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Format: CD, Duration: 45 minutes
Publication date: 4 July 2003
Publisher: Univox

This teaching by Sando Kaisen describes the state of the ignorant man, a puppet animated by the strings of his own projections. And how this same man discovers the meaning of life by knowing how to return to the source of the uncreated. There he finds unlimited freedom and the happiness of the great encounter with what has always been there.
«There is no other God but man himself when he awakens from his dream to truly be the Awakened One.»

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Format: CD, Duration: 70 minutes
Publication date: 4 July 2003
Publisher: Univox

During a journey across Europe, in a lively atmosphere punctuated by funny or exemplary stories, Sando Kaisen develops various themes: the origin of religions, the nature of the mind, time, space, life and death, meditation, and the meaning of songs and prayers.
«All phenomena contained in all universes form an indivisible whole.» «Ultimately, we must strive for true dialogue, beyond words, beyond -isms, beyond our points of view, and dialogue together from my soul to your soul.»

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Format: CD, Duration: 63 minutes
Publication date: 2 November 2005
Publisher: Univox

«Inhaling and exhaling the energy of fundamental cosmic power, feeling it present in every cell of the body, experiencing this boundlessness, is to understand eternity: it is physiological. If we could act through essence, then all actions would be nothing more than the action of essence. As long as we look and listen through our personal history, we cannot realise the Way.»

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Format: CD, Duration: 57 minutes
Publication date: 2 November 2005
Publisher: Univox

«We should draw upon the silent beauty of the world to manifest it in every action of our lives.»
«There is only one way to achieve beauty: it is through serene attention, paid to everything.»
«The awakened man, through his compassion, spreads his kindness to all. His infinite radiance shines within us. It even touches the trees, the flowers, the mountains, the stars and the entire universe.»

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