Spreading Out the Vision An Excerpt from Hidden Zen Gazing at Distant Mountains The first practice we will examine is a bodily method of direct pointing. Specifically, it uses the eyes and vision to change our way of experiencing. In Zen training, and particularly during zazen, the eyes are used in a specific manner that [...]

Yvonne’s dear friend and colleague, Zen priest and teacher Jisho Warner, composed the following obituary of Yvonne Rand. You can also view our profile of Yvonne here. Yvonne Rand, September 23, 1935 – August 19, 2020   no wind, yet the windbells keep on ringing —Kokan Shiren   Yvonne Rand (née Boye), a significant member of [...]

Thich Nhat Hanh on Dying...and Living For more from Thich Nhat Hanh, who passed away on January 22, 2022, see his author page with books, audiobooks, cards, as well as anthologies where his teachings are included. Becoming Truly Alive What would you do if your doctor told you that you only had three months to [...]

A Remembrance of Yvonne RandYvonne Rand, a leading teacher and figure in Zen Buddhism in the US, passed away on August 19, 2020. While not the author of any books, her writing appears in several books including: A White Tea Bowl: 100 Haiku from 100 Years of Life which includes a piece by Yvonne about Shunryu [...]

Excerpt from Four Men Shaking: Searching for Sanity with Samuel Beckett, Norman Mailer, and My Perfect Zen Teacher I go to sleep early but wake in a panic, realizing at once that Roshi’s talk is simmering in my mind. No label—not “anxiety,” not “terror,” not even “panic”—seems right for my condition until it occurs to [...]

We know your lives have been profoundly changed by the impact of the ongoing global health crisis. We know you are concerned for yourselves, for your loved ones, for your communities. We know so many people are suffering right now, and are afraid. And we want to help. We want you to know that though we [...]

Stephanie Kaza, author of GREEN BUDDHISM: Practice and Compassionate Action in Uncertain Times, in conversation about her life as a UC Santa Cruz biologist, a writer, a professor, and a Buddhist.     Green Buddhism$18.95 - PaperbackBy: Stephanie Kaza Add to Cart Books by Stephanie Kaza See All Books

My Story of Becoming the First African-American Man to Receive Soto Zen Transmission An Excerpt from Zen beyond Mindfulness My Beginnings I was born in 1939 in Chester, Pennsylvania, an industrial town just outside of Philadelphia that was working class and extremely diverse. Based on this background, the path I ended up taking was exceedingly [...]

The Essence of Art An excerpt from The Book of Tea By Kakuzo Okakura Related Books The Book of Tea$14.95 - PaperbackBy: Sam Hamill & Kakuzo Okakura Add to Cart The Book of Tea$12.95 - PaperbackBy: Kakuzo Okakura Add to Cart Striving to Become Art Itself In religion the future is behind us. In art the [...]

Yunmen in Context Setting the Stage for Chan Long before Buddhism arrived in China around the beginning of the Common Era, Chinese thinkers taught ideas whose orientation was of striking similarity to some central tenets of that foreign religion that had yet to arrive. These teachings, ascribed to the ancient sages Laozi (Lao-tzu) and Zhuangzi [...]