Books have had a huge influence on my life since I was a young teenager. From shifting my outlook on the whole universe to introducing me to places and things I had no idea existed, being a vegetarian (thanks to Ismael), and eventually introducing me to Zen Buddhism. Any of the most important changes in my life have been brought on by books.
A book recommendation prompted me to purchase the book that first brought me to mindfulness, meditation, and Buddhism a long time ago. I hope you find one (or more) of these books useful in your own life and everyday activity.
Now that it’s been 5-6 years since my mind has dwelled down more towards audiobooks.
I had a long run digging down and penning down the best audiobooks on Buddhism.
Let’s Find Out What These Amazing Buddhism Audiobooks have to offer?
Perhaps you are a yoga master looking for in-depth subjects, or perhaps you are new to your zen practice but need encouragement. In either case, these ten titles include a thorough collection from which to begin or continue your spiritual practice. Poems, short stories, emails, and full-length texts are also available in audio format.
They cover numerous schools of philosophy and theology, from traditionalists to contemporary adherents, and span regional nations and more than 20 years.
Here are our picks for the best zen audiobooks that come from some of history’s most influential religious and intellectual minds.
Top Audiobooks To Learn About Buddha and Buddhism:
- Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind is a set of teishos, or Zen talks, delivered by Soto Buddhist monk Shunryu Suzuki at his San Francisco base. Suzuki is well-known for establishing the first Zen Buddhist monastery outside of Asia, so it’s no wonder that his book of lectures has become a spiritual literature classic.
Suzuki’s theories, divided into three parts—correct mind, the right mindset, and right understanding—emphasize the importance of preserving a beginner’s attitude during one’s research in order to optimize one’s flexibility and opportunity. Narrator Peter Coyote is a seasoned performer, having previously narrated classics such as The Four Agreements and The Voice of Knowledge.
Best About This AudioBook
This isn’t exactly a good beginner’s text unless you plan on listening to it, but it’s still a fantastic resource for someone new to meditation or mindfulness practice, or anyone interested in following a Buddhist tradition (particularly Zen).
With classics like The Four Agreements and The Sound of Knowledge under his belt, narrator Peter Coyote is an experienced actor, and he’s cool, confident voice coupled with the retro style of this recording make this one of the finest forays into the genre of zen audiobooks.
- The Three Pillars of Zen
The founder of the Rochester Zen Center provides a detailed description of Zen Buddhism in this classic piece of spiritual instruction. Roshi investigates the three foundations of Zen-teaching, meditation, and awakening.
The Three Pillars of Zen, by one of the founding fathers of the American Zen tradition, Roshi Phillip Kapleau, is another work by a respected figure in the Zen world. It is a concise summary of the fundamental tenets of Zen Buddhism.
But it’s more than just information—Kapleau combines experiences from his own experience as both a student and a tutor, giving his insight into the intimate, human touch that helps listeners to react to it in a meaningful way.
Best About This AudioBook
Philip Kapleau, the man who created one of the United States’ oldest and most prominent Zen centres, provides a personal account of his own encounters as a student and instructor, providing listeners with insightful guidance about how to build their own practices.
Sean Runnette, the narrator, is an Earphones Award nominee and talented television performer, and his deep, meditative sound helps you to concentrate clearly on Kapleau’s words while still easing into a Zen state.
- The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching
Thich Nhat Hanh conveys soothing insight regarding the essence of suffering and its importance in cultivating kindness, empathy, and joy – all attributes of enlightenment – with poetry and clarification.
“Thich Nhat Hanh illustrates the connection between intimate, inner peace and world peace.”—Himself the Dalai Lama
Nhat Hanh brings us to the central teachings of Buddhism in The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, now updated with new content and observations, and reveals that the Buddha’s teachings are available and relevant to our everyday lives.
Covering important teachings such as the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, the Three Doors to Liberation, the Three Dharma Seals, and the Severed Head
Best About This AudioBook
This, in my view, the single best audiobook available for those looking for a simple and concise guide to Buddhism. That is what there is to it.
In it, he deconstructs many of the main and minor basic Buddhist teachings, summarises them for western comprehension, and also begins the audiobook with a thorough description of the lineage and history of the Buddha’s writings.
The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching is an excellent audiobook for those interested in learning more about Buddhism or deepening their Buddhist practice.
- The Art of Communicating
Thich Nhat Hanh, the bestselling author of Peace Is Every Step and one of the world’s most esteemed and revered religious figures, offers a strong roadmap to happiness through mastering life’s most valuable talent.
How can we say what we think in a manner that the other person will understand?
How do we listen with compassion and understanding?
Communication strengthens the bonds that hold people together, whether in partnerships, company, or daily experiences. Most of us, on the other hand, have never been taught the fundamentals of speech, let alone how to better reflect our true self.
Effective contact is as vital to our health and satisfaction as the food we eat. It may either be helpful (and nourishing) or dangerous (and toxic) (and destructive).
Best About This AudioBook
Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen master and Buddhist monk, reveal how to listen mindfully and articulate your truest and the purest self in this precise and realistic tutorial.
With lessons from his practice with couples, families, and foreign crises, The Art of Communicating helps us step past the perils and frustrations of misrepresentation and confusion to learn the listening and speech skills that will forever transform how we view and affect the planet.
- The Wisdom of Compassion
The Dalai Lama’s image in The Wisdom of Compassion is profoundly intimate. It tells the story of his relationship with a blind Irishman, how they met, and how the Dalai Lama comes to name him his one and only hero in later meetings.
It delves into the Dalai Lama’s relationship with a neuroscientist and how it leads to important findings of the human brain. It also includes moving stories of his unusual experiences with a little beggar girl, a disabled child in a critical care hospital, a man who teaches grandmothers to be solar engineers, and several more.
Best About This AudioBook
The Wisdom of Compassion provides unique insights into the Dalai Lama’s life and efforts to transform compassion into action by intensely entertaining, behind-the-scenes tales about his encounters with extraordinary people from all walks of life.
This is the Dalai Lama at his most compassionate and humanistic. We see how he treats the world with levity, hope, and a deep appreciation for the plight of others.
- Radical Dharma
This crucial call to action initiates a long-overdue discussion on how the history of racial inequality and white supremacy manifests in society at large and Buddhist traditions in particular and outlines a new dharma that takes into account the ways that colonialism and privilege hinder our collective awakening.
The narrators traveled around the country to initiate an open dialogue that combines the Black prophetic tradition with the wisdom of the Dharma. They advocate for a humane approach to the systematic, state-sanctioned racism and injustice that has existed against black people since the slave age, bridging the worlds of spirit and advocacy.
Best About This AudioBook
Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams, Lama Rod Owens, and Jasmine Syedullah are new voices in American Buddhism.
They ask how inequality and the complexities of dominance, stigma, and bigotry impede teachings that transcend race, status, and caste, and provide their own backgrounds and perspectives as examples of the types of difficulties facing dharma practitioners and teachers that are distinct from those of the previous five decades.
- Chakras for Beginners
Do you want to use yoga to cure yourself? If that’s the case, keep listening!
A significant majority of mankind recognizes the value of chakra balance in order to preserve long-term wellbeing. The whole world is made up of energy, and human metabolism is no different! Years before contemporary technologies and research, ancient civilizations understood that all living things possessed a life force. It creates many energy centers, known as chakras, that travel inside us. These play an important role in our body’s equilibrium and wellbeing.
But what exactly are the chakras referring to? And what makes them so valuable?
Best About This AudioBook
This spinning force has seven centers in our bodies, beginning at the base of the spine and advancing to the top of the head. They control all aspects of the human body, affecting everything from mental treatment to disease tolerance.
Chakra strategies are usually used to open them and hold them balanced. They may have a negative effect not only on physical health but also on psychological well-being whether they are blocked or incorrectly coordinated.
- The Promise of Kuan Yin
Look around you as you walk down the streets of Chinatown in any American or Western European area. She is present. Take a stroll through the city streets and peer into a store window. She is present. Open your eyes to every city in China. She is also there.
Kuan Yin is the most famous and well-known Chinese god. She is the living embodiment of compassion, with a tender face and graceful body that serves as the focal point of commitment in the majority of Chinese homes and workplaces. She was little recognized in the West until recently, and little research had been done on her.
Best About This AudioBook
The best and most detailed audiobook on China’s most powerful and well-known goddess!
This seminal work, originally published as Kuan Yin by Harper Collins in 1995 (and republished as The Kuan Yin Chronicles by Hampton Roads in 2009), examines the goddess’s history and development in ancient China, early Buddhism, Taoism, and shamanism.
Martin Palmer, a religious scholar, and Man-Ho Kwok, a Chinese divination specialist, address the Kuan Yin myths and legends, and Jay Ramsay offers new translations of 100 Kuan Yin poems that serve as both literature and divination instruments.
- Buddha’s Brain
You will change your life if you change your mind!
Great teachers such as the Buddha, Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, and Gandhi were all born with minds that were exactly the same as everyone else’s and yet transformed their brains in ways that changed the universe. Scientific is now showing how the movement of thoughts forms the brain, and we are discovering that it is possible to improve positive brain states.
You, too, will use your mind to transform your brain for greater pleasure, intimacy, and understanding by merging breakthroughs in neuroscience with lessons from thousands of years of mindfulness practice. Buddha’s Brain uses cutting-edge science to explain how to activate the brain for more satisfying relationships, a deeper spiritual existence, and a better sense of inner trust and value.
Best About This AudioBook
This audiobook presents an unparalleled intersection of psychiatry, neurology, and meditative meditation, and it is filled with useful tools and skills that you can use every day to tap your brain’s unused potential and rewire it over time for greater well-being and peace of mind…
- Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living
Start Where You Are is a must-have guide for developing fearlessness and awakening a caring spirit. Pema Chödrön offers practical advice about how to start where we are,’ accepting rather than dismissing the traumatic facets of our lives, with wisdom and laughter.
Pema Chödrön bases her compassion teachings on fifty-nine conventional Tibetan Buddhist maxims, or slogans, such as “Always add only a joyful state of mind,” “Don’t seek others’ suffering as limbs of your own pleasure,” and “Always meditate on whatever provokes anger.”
Best About This AudioBook
Using these slogans and the practice of meditation, Start Where You Are demonstrates how we can all cultivate the ability to deal through our inner pain and find joy, well-being, and confidence.
Final Verdict
All these audiobooks on Buddhism mythology have one thing in common!
Learn to live a happier life!
The countless number of methodologies have been narrated excellently which will enlighten your path in the long haul.
Happy Listening!
Here are a few other websites to find best audiobooks to endeavour your journey towards buddhism mythology :
This article was written by 10audioz and published on Wednesday, 1 December 2021. The last update was made on Tuesday, 15 February 2023.