Stepping into Freedom: An Introduction to Buddhist Monastic Training

Stepping into Freedom outlines the rules of Buddhist novice monastic practice, including mindfulness poems, novice precepts, mindful manners, exhortations of Master Kuei Shan, advice to young monks, and recitation texts. These texts provide an important insight into the heart of practice taught by the Buddha, and are useful and relevant for us all. Such basic teachings as mindfulness in each moment, conscious breathing, sitting and walking meditation, and using gathas (meditation poems) are included, to help us reduce stress and lead a wholesome and happy life, whether in a society of monks and nuns or in the larger society of the world.

THICH NHAT HANH is one of the most revered and influential spiritual teachers in the world today. Born in Vietnam in 1926, he became a Zen Buddhist monk at the age of sixteen. Over seven decades of teaching, he has published more than 100 books, which have sold more than five million copies in the United States alone. Exiled from Vietnam in 1966 for promoting peace, his teachings on Buddhism as a path to social and political transformation are responsible for bringing mindfulness to the West. In 1982 he established the international Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism in France, now the largest Buddhist monastery in Europe. He lives in Hue in Central Vietnam.

Translated by Annabel Laity.