"Living and Dying in Zazen "combines the life stories and teaching of five teachers--Kodo Sawaki, Sodo Yokoyama, Kozan Kato, Motoko Ikebe, and Uchiyama--associated with Antaiji monastery and the story of Bravermen and other Western students coming to grips with Zen, Japanese culture, and themselves. The deification of Zen teachers by their followers has been a problematic issue in American Zen; this book provides a healthy antidote, presenting four men and one woman who have lived and died in Zen within the rich context of their personal lives and their culture, so that we can fully...

Dharma Brothers: Kodo and Tokujoo is based on the lives of two Japanese Zen Masters, how they grew from two ordinary boys, walking very different paths to become extraordinary men, and the deep spiritual bond between them. It is also the story of Japan from 1880 to 1965, of two personal accounts of Zen journeys to enlightenment, and of love and friendship. The story follows the lives of these two Dharma brothers, set against a backdrop of the Japanese-Russian War of 1905, and the rise of fascism in Japan in the 1930s. Kodo was an orphan, brought up in a harsh environment, while Tokujoo was...

What motivated Sodo-san to spend the last twenty years of his life in a "temple under the sky"-- a corner of a public park where he taught passersby what it means to be forever young through the funky tunes he played on his grass flute?

In The Grass Flute Zen Master: Sodo Yokoyama, we are seeking not only a truer understanding of this well-loved monk, but of zazen, Zen meditation, itself. In his search for insights into Sodo Yokoyama's life, Arthur Braverman skillfully weaves a tapestry from seemingly disparate threads--the brief taisho period into which...