Christian Dillo

CHRISTIAN DILLO spent over twenty years as a residential monastic at the Crestone Mountain Zen Center in Colorado, completing Dharma transmission with Zentatsu Richard Baker Roshi in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. In 2015 he began serving as Guiding Teacher at the Boulder Zen Center, where he now lives with his wife, son, and several students.

"The Path of Aliveness is a daring and breathtaking book! Deconstructing and reconstructing Buddhism based on his own experience, his training with Buddhist teachers, and his background in Western phenomenology and psychology, Christian Dillo astutely provides intelligent explanations and detailed practical examples to show us how Zen Buddhism can be, and perhaps always has been, a path to a luminously embodied sense of being alive." —Norman Fischer, author of When You Greet Me I Bow and The Museum of Capitalism

"Christian Dillo is a wonderful teacher: he digs in deep. For this book he chose some essential Buddhist topics and brought them to life in an authentic and personal way. A beautifully written and thoughtful book." —Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel, author of The Logic of Faith and The Power of an Open Question

"How can we become more fully alive? How does Buddhist practice transform and liberate us? How might the meaning of our lives embody wisdom and compassion? This down-to-earth book offers a harvest of insights, gleaned from Christian Dillo’s many years of practice and teaching. It brings the path to life for us today." —David Loy, author of Ecodharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Ecological Crisis

"The Path of Aliveness is a walk with a friend for anyone who wants to use awareness to transform their life in the direction of ever greater embodied freedom. Drawing from his decades of struggles and joys, Christian Dillo offers us a precise path for how to practice with our experience. He brings the energy of Zen into our daily lives in an accessible, practical, and courageous way." —Koshin Paley Ellison, author of Wholehearted: Slow Down, Help Out, Wake Up

"This beautifully written book guides the reader into fully embodied Zen practice. This book can serve as a handbook toward ‘undivided intimacy,’ which is our true relationship with each other and all beings in our world. Beginners as well as seasoned practitioners will find nourishment and deep wisdom here." —Konjin Gaelyn Godwin, Abbot of Houston Zen Center and Auspicious Cloud West; Director of Soto Zen Buddhism International Center, North America

"An excellent introduction to a modern practice of Zen Buddhism." —Publishers Weekly

"Dillo offers what the title promises: the opening of a path of aliveness for people today." —Spirituality & Practice