Zen Sand is a classic collection of verses aimed at aiding practitioners of koan meditation to negotiate the difficult relationship between insight and language. As such it represents a major contribution to both Western Zen practice and English-language Zen scholarship. In Japan the traditional Rinzai Zen koan curriculum includes the use of jakugo, or capping phrases. Once a monk has successfully replied to a koan, the Zen master orders the search for a classical verse to express the monk's insight into the koan. Special collections of these jakugo were compiled as handbooks to aid in that...

When Sasaki Sokei-an founded his First Zen Institute of North America in 1930 he suggested that bringing Zen Buddhism to America was like "holding a lotus against a rock and waiting for it to set down roots." Today, Buddhism is part of the cultural and religious mainstream. Flowers on the Rock examines the dramatic growth of Buddhism in Canada and questions some of the underlying assumptions about how this tradition has changed in the West. Using historical, ethnographic, and biographical approaches, contributors illuminate local expressions of Buddhism found throughout Canada and relate the...

When Sasaki Sokei-an founded his First Zen Institute of North America in 1930 he suggested that bringing Zen Buddhism to America was like "holding a lotus against a rock and waiting for it to set down roots." Today, Buddhism is part of the cultural and religious mainstream. Flowers on the Rock examines the dramatic growth of Buddhism in Canada and questions some of the underlying assumptions about how this tradition has changed in the West. Using historical, ethnographic, and biographical approaches, contributors illuminate local expressions of Buddhism found throughout Canada and relate the...