Banyen Book and Sound’s storefront is a Vancouver landmark, between downtown and the University of British Columbia.
Photos by: Banyen Books, by Kolin Lymworth, Leanna Manning, David Wisdom

Despite the pandemic Banyen Books & Sound of Vancouver continues, offering what may be largest inventory of Buddhist titles in Western Canada and the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

The center aisle, with its iconic arches, draws a visitor into the store.

Banyen Books & Sound has weathered the rise of box stores, mega-online companies, rising rental costs in Vancouver, global recession, and a pandemic, and still exists and serves the community. Banyen carries about 1,700 Buddhist titles, as well as a vast selection of titles from every other spiritual tradition.

Vancouver, B.C.’s legendary bookstore continues at 50 years as a Dharma watering hole, a meeting place, and an oasis of inspiration.

“It’s delightful to see new customers walk into the store and be overawed with so many new and classic Buddhist books: from Tibetan Buddhism, to Theravada, to Zen, and beyond,” said Staff Member Anusha Fernando. “We keep an updated directory of local Buddhist resources on hand to give to people seeking meditation guidance, and we have a number of staff members who have studied deeply in these traditions and can help people find what they are seeking.”

Over the decades Banyen has hosted retreats and Dharma talks by Buddhist teachers including Jon Kabat-Zinn, Robert Thurman, Tara Brach, Sharon Salzberg, and angel Kyodo Williams. Banyen also has provided support when luminaries such as Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama have visited Vancouver.

For Dharma practitioners a key feature is the more than 1,700 Buddhist titles Banyen offers.

Since the onset of the pandemic the percentage of Banyen’s online orders—shipped speedily anywhere in Canada and the United States—has jumped from 2 percent to 10 percent of total sales. Banyen has developed a beautifully designed and easy-to-use website, which helps customers search titles quickly and purchase directly.  Banyen’s shipping team has grown with online sales.

After the pandemic hit in March 2020 Banyen took its events online, attracting attendees from around the world. Banyen offers several events monthly, most of them free, featuring leading authors and spiritual teachers. The event lineup is constantly updated online.

With 30,000 books in inventory, Banyen is Canada’s largest and most comprehensive spiritual bookstore.  Banyen offers a broad spectrum of resources from the world’s wisdom and healing traditions, and has carried a few classic titles, including “The I Ching,” and “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind,” since first opening in 1970.

Multiple aisles of books also offer cozy reading nooks.

Banyen also carries a wide range of products to support meditation practice including meditation cushions and benches, most of them locally made. Other items include incense, meditation bells, and altar objects, including statues of the Buddha or Tara.

Just a few blocks from Vancouver’s beautiful Jericho beach, Banyen is also close to downtown Vancouver. Its warm interior is rich with wooden book cases and displays carrying books up to the ceiling. Rainbow arches separate several colorful book-filled rooms, and the floors are scattered with carpets.

The 1,800-square-foot store is now open daily for visiting and browsing, despite careful Covid protocols for the safety of staff and community. Banyen staff continue to answer emails and phones and to assist customers with curbside pickups.

The banyan tree of life

Banyen Books & Sound is named after the banyan tree; a tree that provides precious shelter and shade in India and East Asia. Banyans are iconic sacred trees, around which temples and sanctuaries have been built for centuries.

The current catalog echoes Banyen’s 50-year history.

Banyen was founded by Kolin Lymworth, who continues to head operations but now with a staff of 27 people. His daughter Alethea Lymworth is increasingly taking leadership of the store.

This ancient image of the banyan tree of life, offering sanctuary and spiritual nourishment, got mixed in with Kolin Lymworth’s1970 quest to find the “Banyan Ashram.” This was supposedly a wild, communal eco-community, which Lymworth had heard Dharma poet Gary Snyder and friends had established on a remote island in southern Japan.

Lymworth’s idea for Banyen Books was to serve community through “awakening-in-depth,” via teachings of the great world traditions of spiritual liberation. Lymworth shifted the name spelling from banyan to Banyen under the guidance of numerology.

Enlightenment day in 1970

So Banyen Bookshop, as it was first known, opened its rather rainbowy doors early in December of 1970. We could say this happened on Bodhi Day—traditionally Dec. 8—the holiday that for many Buddhists marks the day that the historical Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama, awakened.

The Banyen Bookshop storefront, in 1971.

In a tiny storefront wedged between a meat market and a crisis center, across the street from The Naam vegetarian restaurant, Lymworth began to ply his wares.

In those days many of the books came from Bookpeople, a hip wholesaler in Berkeley, California. Much of the impetus came from Sam Bercholz, who at the time was running Shambhala Bookstore in Berkeley, and who mentored and prodded Lymworth to open a store in Vancouver. Bercholz soon started Shambhala Publishing.

Since those ragged post-hippie days Shambhala has become one of the world’s  leading publishers of Buddhist books, and wisdom books in general. To this day Banyen Books & Sound tries to carry every possible Shambhala title, together with books from a wide selection of Buddhist publishers.

Banyen’s first offerings

Banyen has always sponsored events, including Steven Levine, Ram Das and Jai Uttal in 1978.

In the earliest “catalog” of Banyen—a densely hand-drawn single sheet of paper, printed both sides, issued shortly after opening—we read this:

“The word ‘shambala’ means a synthesis, a coming together, an alloy, the union of heaven and earth, total integration, in-fusing, Truth… THERE MUST BE A CENTRAL FOCUS WHERE ALL EYES SHINE.”

The catalog continues:

“We carry the complete CLEAR LIGHT series…books on or by Buddha, Milarepa, Nanak, Christ, Lao Tzu, Mohammed, Krishnamurti, Suzuki-Roshi, Hafiz, T. Leary, Ramakrishna, Kirpal Singh, Jung, Gandhi, Gary Snyder, Yogananda, Shiva, St. Francis, Gurdjieff, Dalai Lama, etc.” 

A hand-drawn Banyen advertisement from the early years.

In tiny hand-printed letters the back side of the Banyen Bookshop catalog listed hundreds of titles, compared to the 30,000 Banyen carries today. The only books whose covers have remained absolutely identical over 50 years are “Be Here Now” by Ram Dass, and “The I Ching,” by Richard Wilhelm and Cary F. Baynes.

Banyen Books & Sound continues to serve customers who have grown up alongside Banyen, as well as the younger generations. As a bookstore seeking a balance between the “studious” scholarly and the “juicy” experiential, Banyen recognizes that seekers are unique and find their connections through varying metaphors, levels of depth, and practices.

Should you find yourself on a quest, much like Kolin Lymworth did 50 years ago, Banyen Books & Sound is a safe place for minds and hearts to open, and for insight to deepen.