John Tarrant

JOHN TARRANT is a Zen teacher, writer, and poet who has studied koans for over forty years. He is director of the Pacific Zen Institute and teaches culture change in organizations. Tarrant holds degrees in human sciences and English literature and a PhD in psychology. For twenty years he was a Jungian psychotherapist working on dream analysis. He is the author of several books, including The Light Inside the Dark: Zen, Soul, and the Spiritual Life and Bring Me the Rhinoceros: And Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life. He lives among the vineyards near Santa Rosa, California.

"John Tarrant is one of the most interesting minds in American Buddhism. He weaves his deep immersion in Buddhist practice, Western psychology, and the arts into a unique yet completely authentic story of the Zen life and its mysteries." —Melvin McLeod, editor-in-chief, the Shambhala Sun

"You’ve never read a Zen book like this before. Having digested the traditional koan literature, which he has taught for many years, Zen teacher John Tarrant cheerfully goes beyond it. His koan re-tellings read like postmodern short fiction, complete with anti-heroic characters, visible scenery, and attitude. Rather than the usual Zen mystique that treats koans as arcane meditation objects, Tarrant discusses them as open secrets that actually matter for our lives here and now." —Zoketsu Norman Fischer, poet and Zen priest; author of Sailing Home: Using the Wisdom of Homer’s Odyssey to Navigate Life’s Perils and Pitfalls

"Bring Me the Rhinoceros is one of the best books ever written about Zen." —Stephen Mitchell, translator of Gilgamesh: A New English Version

"Here’s a book to crack the happiness code if ever there was one. Forget about self-improvement, five-point plans, and inspirational seminars that you can’t remember a word of a week later. Tarrant’s is the fix that fixes nothing because there is nothing to fix. Your life is a koan, a deep question whose answer you are already living—this is the true inspiration, and Tarrant delivers." —Roger Housden, author of the Ten Poems series

"Every life is full of koans, and yet you can’t learn from a book how to understand them. You need someone to put you in the right frame of mind to see the puzzles and paradoxes of your experience. With intelligence, humor, and steady deep reflection, John Tarrant does this as no one has done it before. This book could take you to a different and important level of experience." —Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul

"John Tarrant’s talent for telling these classic Zen tales transforms them magically into a song in which, as you read, the words disappear as the music continues to echo in your mind and make you happy. Mysteriously, like koans." —Sylvia Boorstein, author of Pay Attention, For Goodness’ Sake