A Temporary Affair

Talks on Awakening and Zen

De: David Radin

Narrado por: David Radin

This collection of genuine teachings resonates with an authenticity that comes from Yoshin's many years of practice. It is both profound and practical.

A Temporary Affair is a collection of talks given at Sunday morning sittings at the Ithaca Zen Center by Yoshin David Radin, abbot and founder of the Ithaca Zen Center for the past 40 years. The talks contained here were given at a time when Yoshin’s health was severely compromised by end stage renal failure. In February 2019, he received a kidney transplant from a member of Ithaca Zen Center, to whom the publication is dedicated.

The collection of 31 talks contains the insight of the individual dharma talks themselves, as well as the underlying story of how the dharma teachings helped the author cope, and even thrive, with his continuing loss of kidney function. The talks go right up to the days before he was admitted to the hospital. The comfort and guidance he received from the dharma during the times when he was most ill have been a great inspiration to all who know him, as they will to listeners. In his own words, “How extraordinary, how blessed, how wonderful, to have met the teachings that free us from suffering when in difficult places.” Through these talks the listener can clearly see how he put that wisdom to use in his own life situation, and how they can do so as well.

©2022 David Radin (P)2025 Monkfish Book Publishing

Reseñas de la Crítica

“These short discourses by an old Zen priest facing his possible imminent death are relaxed and friendly in tone. They speak directly to the heart of human suffering, the confusion that comes from not understanding what is clearly available for us to feel directly and be liberated. It is a book I keep on my bedside table, at close hand when I need a dose of encouragement.”—Sylvia Boorstein, cofounding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center and author of Happiness Is an Inside Job

“Life is amazing when we step out of our thoughts, our selves, and become the mystery alive to itself. With kindness and Zen directness, Yoshin David Radin opens the gate of simplicity and invites us to live here, awake, free.”—Jack Kornfield, author of No Time Like the Present

“‘You should find your salvation by becoming bored with your suffering...if you can be alone with yourself, you can be comfortable anywhere.’ With such unexpected and unpretentious teachings, Yoshin David Radin makes Zen completely available. A Temporary Affair is a treasure house of comforting wisdom, a book you’ll go back to again and again to undo the tangles in your mind.”—Norman Fischer, poet, Zen priest, and author of The World Could Be Otherwise: Imagination and the Bodhisattva Path

Beautifully Inspiring

A beautiful book about the importance of realizing the impermanence of everything but spirit, and how peace and happiness are found within the deep state of a quiet mind, not in material processions or the reaching of goals.

Deep and touching so far.

I'm listening to this a bit at a time, this is a collection of Radin's talks given at weekly practice I think. I'm in no rush to eat all the cookies in one sitting. Each talk is cause for reflection and begs to be used in my life. I have found them all profound and touching in composition and delivery so far.