Living Awakeness
Embodying Your Awakening
Living Awakeness
Embodying Your Awakening
Fully awaken to your potential Buddhahood through the innovative guidance, exercises, and personal reflections of one of contemporary Buddhism’s most experienced teachers.
When we deeply experience the Absolute, we are transformed by a profound, life-changing Awakening. But what happens after this realization? How do we embody and sustain it? Buddhist tradition has little to support our ongoing assimilation of these intense experiences-until now.
Stephen Mugen Snyder, Roshi, offers Living Awakeness as the first hands-on guide to name, explore, and practice the qualities of Awakeness, highlighting the path to truly living our Buddha nature. With this book, Snyder lays out the steps for embodying our Awakeness: -the qualities to look for-his experiences with them and Awakening-thought-provoking exercises to integrate those qualities -the roots of Awakeness as the base we’re building from-the paths of Awakeness in both the Theravada and Zen traditions
From his first experience of knowing wholeness at three years old to his deep study of Buddhism over fifty years of adulthood, Snyder’s spiritual path has laid the groundwork for Living Awakeness‘s wisdom.
Let this original exploration help you be who you truly are.
“Based on Stephen’s in-depth study and teaching, Living Awakeness provides powerful practical guidance to students who have had confirmed Awakening experiences, helping them identify, practice, develop, and integrate the qualities of Awakening. These qualities arise spontaneously when we let go of the idea that we’re a self—separate from others, from the living world, from the great universe itself. Whether we experience the surrender of self for a moment or a lifetime, our lives and the lives of countless others are liberated and deeply enriched. This book is a doorway into just that kind of embodied experience. Please don’t miss it.”
— Mark Sando Mininberg, Roshi, from Foreword of Living Awakeness
Reviews
“Stephen Mugen Snyder, Roshi holds lineage recognition as a teacher in both Theravāda and Zen Buddhism. Drawing on these deep wells of contemplative wisdom and enhanced through his decades of work with students, Stephen offers a presentation of the path to awakening that is both profound and practical. But he does not stop there. In “Living Awakeness” Stephen has created a lucid and valuable guide to the post-awakening territory. His descriptions of twelve facets of awakening and how to cultivate them are immediately usable and replete with his characteristic blend of insight, honesty, and compassion. “Living Awakeness” is an important guide for any who sincerely wish to go beyond mere glimpses of awakening and live in a full embodiment of the possibilities of the path. “
— Stephen James Pigott, educator and host of the Guru Viking Podcast.
“The great teacher Stephen Mugen Snyder, Roshi draws us into tender intimacy with depths of being that open into the Absolute. His writing is simple, direct, and sincere, coming straight from his own realization. He weaves together diverse strands of contemplative wisdom into a transformational Magic Carpet of awakening!”
— Rick Hanson, Ph.D., author of Buddha’s Brain, Hardwiring Happiness, Resilient, and Neurodharma
“Mugen’s excellent work builds bridges in many directions – with a background in both Zen and Theravadan Buddhist practice, he helpfully discusses awakening from both perspectives. And while this book includes a tremendous amount of information that Mugen has accumulated over many years, and is extremely helpful in explaining millennia of doctrine, it is firmly rooted in, and aimed directly toward, the reader’s personal practice. Indeed, Zen practice is always fundamentally experiential, and this book is designed to help provide guideposts both to those setting out on the path as well as to those well along the journey. Mugen tackles complex topics with great clarity. For the armchair Buddhist, this is an invitation to deepen practice; for the experienced practitioner, it offers a framework of reference. An invaluable contribution.”
— Dharma-Joy Reichert, Abbot and Head Priest, Zen Center of Los Angeles
“Stephen Mugen Snyder, Roshi is uniquely positioned to guide us with insights from multiple wisdom traditions, namely Theravada and Zen Buddhism, earned through decades of practice. He lights the way not only to freedom from ego-personality, but also to the blossoming of that personality into a vessel for wisdom and compassion.”
—Simeon B. Mihaylov, creator of SEEKER TO SEEKER
“Living Awakeness is a rare and compelling integration of deep realization and practical guidance, bridging the strengths of both Theravada and Zen traditions with remarkable clarity. Stephen Mugen Snyder, Roshi offers a precise and experience-based map of awakening that doesn’t stop at insight but shows how to embody it through the lived qualities of awakeness. This is a valuable and trustworthy guide for serious practitioners seeking not just awakening, but a life aligned with it. “
— Mark Coleman, Dharma teacher, author
“Mugen Roshi’s latest work fills a gap in the literature on Awakening, by bringing to life the specific qualities, attributes and factors that are developed in spiritual practice in an organized, intimate, and comprehensive way. By elucidating the subtler dimensions cultivated in sincere practice, this book should provide strong guidance and deep encouragement, especially for those experiencing the common pitfall of reaching a “plateau.” I especially appreciated Mugen’s inclusion of emotionally rich qualities such as delight, tenderness and gratitude, to go along with more commonly discussed ones such as unification, surrender and service. A wonderful guide to the “scenic route” that is the spiritual path. “
— Paul Gyodo Agostinelli, Sensei, Founder, Eon Zen Center
“Living Awakeness explores what is revealed in awakeness and the practices that bring it to life. It is an intimate work, inviting readers into the inner life of spiritual awakening. Like its author, this book is something to treasure. “
— Mark Shope, Associate Professor of Law, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (Taiwan); Founder, Asia Network for Contemplative Legal and Policy Studies
“As a devoted student of Mugen Roshi’s, Living Awakeness mirrors Roshi’s direct in-person teachings, which I have absorbed and found transformative. Offering depth, authenticity, and clarity, enhanced by Roshi’s highly effective communication style. This book clearly lays out a path and guides readers through meditations and evaluations that support these timeless Theravada and Zen practices, engaging modern-day practitioners with trust and confidence on the path to awakening. “
— Cory Daisetsu Schreiber. Author of Wildwood: Cooking from the Source in the Pacific Northwest: Rustic Fruit Desserts and Zen Kitchen Mind-A Chef’s Journey Through Cause and Effect (forthcoming Fall 2026)