"This may sound strange" is Christopher Taylor's second collection of poetry. It brings together a wide range of poems that are always in motion - in sound and subject, in image and tone. Simple in syntax, these poems remain in the reader's mind long after the book is closed and set aside.

"What is the sound of one hand clapping?" "Does a dog have Buddha-nature?" These cryptic expressions are among the best-known examples of koans, the confusing, often contradictory sayings that form the centrepiece of Zen Buddhist learning and training. Viewed as an ideal method for attaining and transmitting an unimpeded experience of enlightenment, they became the main object of study in Zen meditation, where their contemplation was meant to exhaust the capacity of the rational mind and the expressiveness of speech. Koan compilations, which include elegant poetic and eloquent prose commentaries on cryptic dialogues, are part of a great literary tradition in China, Japan, and Korea that appealed to intellectuals who sought spiritual fulfilment through interpreting elaborate rhetoric related to mysterious metaphysical exchanges. In this compact volume, Steven Heine, who has written extensively on Zen Buddhism and koans, introduces and analyses the classic background of texts and rites and explores the contemporary significance of koans to illuminate the full implications of this ongoing tradition. He delves deeply into the inner structure of koan literature to uncover and interpret profound levels of metaphorical significance. At the same time, he takes the reader beyond the veil of vagueness and inscrutability to an understanding of how koan writings have been used in pre-modern East Asia and are coming to be evoked and implemented in modern American practice of Zen. By focusing on two main facets of the religious themes expressed in koan records-individual religious attainment and the role dialogues play in maintaining order in the monastic system-Zen Koans reveals the distinct yet interlocking levels of meaning reflected in different koan case records and helps make sense of the seemingly nonsensical. It is a book for anyone interested in untangling the web of words used in Zen exchanges and exploring their important place in the vast creative wellspring of East Asian religion and culture.

Here is a book you will appreciate even if you have read many Buddhist books. This book expounds the Dharma in a very lucid way and illuminates the Heart Sutra from Buddhism's apex of psychology and philosophy. This book is a sharp weapon useful for cutting the root of ignorance. It is one thing to talk about or read about the meaning of life and quite another to move through the levels of wisdom to actually live that meaning. Here you'll find a detailed map of the journey to meaning.

Dwight Goddard's collection of translations of a cross-section of Buddhist traditions was a fundamental part of the importation of Buddhism into the USA and then, through the work of the Beat Poets that the book influenced, throughout the West as a whole. Goddard had originally been an engineer but after his wife's death, when he was twenty-nine years old, he entered the Hartford Theological Seminary. He was ordained in 1894 and was sent to China as a Congregational missionary. He was interested in non-Christian religions and as a result of this curiosity began to study various denominations of Buddhism. In 1928, at the age of sixty-seven, Goddard encountered Japanese Zen Buddhism for the first time while in New York City. He was so impressed with it that he moved to Japan where he met D. T. Suzuki and studied for eight months with him at the Yamazaki Taiko Roshi of Shokoku Monastery in Kyoto. His time spent in China and Japan made him feel that lay religious practice was not enough and would lead to worldly distractions and he decided to establish a male-only monastic movement named, 'the Followers of Buddha'. It was situated on forty acres in southern California adjacent to the Santa Barbara National Forest and also on rural land in Thetford, Vermont. The religious 'followers' who participated in the fellowship commuted between the centers in a van, spending winters in California and summers in Vermont. The venture was short lived and closed due to lack of followers. His book, A Buddhist Bible, was published in 1932. Translated from writings Goddard found of worth in the traditions of Theravada, Mahayana, Zen, Tibetan and other Buddhists schools of thought, the book soon became popular and it contributed to the spread of Buddhism in the USA in the 1930's and 1940's. But it was in the 1950's that A Buddhist Bible was to make its most lasting impact. By the end of 1953 the famous writer Jack Kerouac had been living with fellow 'Beat Poets' Neal and Carolyn Cassady in a menage a trois situation and the relationship had become untenable for all of those concerned. It had become obvious that it was time for Jack to move on and Neal recommended that Jack read A Buddhist Bible as a way of finding some much-needed spiritual inspiration. Legend has it that Kerouac headed down to the San Jose library and stole a copy before heading back 'out on the road'! It was natural that Kerouac, who had always battled with his Catholic ideologies and his lifestyle of heavy drinking and womanizing, would find some peace through the principles of Buddhism and this came out in his seminal The Dharma Bums which detailed Kerouac and fellow Beat Gary Snyder's differing takes on the Buddhist way of life. Although at first dismissive of his fellow Beats new found outlook, Allen Ginsberg soon followed suit and A Buddhist Bible, together with the collective writings of the Beat Generation on Buddhism, had a big influence on the American generations that followed. Dwight Goddard was unaware of his new-found fame as he died on his seventy-eighth birthday in 1939.

In this treasury of Zen wisdom based on his talks, the abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery in Mt. Tremper, New York, explores the eight areas of study that are the focus for training in his community: meditation, study with the teacher, liturgy, art practice, body practice, the study of scriptures, work practice, and the moral and ethical teachings. John Daido Loori also covers such topics as koans, the martial arts, and illness and healing, and he makes intriguing observations about the spirit and requirements of Zen in America.

We are, each man and woman, as a unique, glistening leaf. We spring from, we are the Tree which is this World. The Tree is wild, ever changing, the source of all that is. In life's twists and turns. rarely does it go, grow just as we might wish.