Infinite Circle: Teachings in Zen
by Bernie Glassman

This amazing little book is anything but little. It invites us into a world both familiar and inconceivable, and points to a practice which makes a difference in the world around us as well as within. Starting with the Heart Sutra, Roshi Bernie takes us into the relative realities we encounter moment by moment to the absolute oneness of life. Next, his commentary on The Identity of Relative and Absolute, presents the inseparability of the two seemingly opposite domains, and the implications of that . Finally, examining the Bodhisattva Precepts, he opens the aspects of the life of zazen in the everyday world. A wonderful wellspring to return to over and over again. Each reading a new reward.

From Shakyamuni Buddha through fifty three generations of successors to Koun Ejo, the lineage of Soto Zen Buddhism unfolds.

Each chapter centers on a pivotal exchange between a Zen ancestor and his successor. These exchanges, preserved and used as koans, represent the living transmission of awakened mind, presented by Keizan Zenji, co-founder with Dogen Zenji, of the Japanese Soto school.

Master Keizan's lucid commentaries and verses on each case render the succession accessible to the determined practitioner. This masterful collection, parallelling in importance the Shobogenzo of Dogen Zenji, remains a seminal text for all serious students of Zen.

The translation by Francis Dojun Cook is at once meticulous and vivid, embodying careful scholarship as well as the essence of the realization of these fifty three Zen ancestors.

Time spent with this book will richly reward the reader.

Roshi John Daido Loori has assembled the single most comprehensive treasury of writings on the subject.

Often misunderstood, the practice of shikantaza is authoritatively presented and carefully examined in two dozen essays by Chinese, Japanese, and American masters, along with an appendix of six seminal classic texts.

This volume, spanning the centuries since Shakymuni Buddha to the present day, will prove indispensable to meditators and scholars alike.

John Daido Loori has given us a rare treasure.

Magid uses classical koans, clinical material, and the thinking of cutting-edge psychoanalysts like Stolorow, Eigen, and others to lucidly explore the commonalities and divergences of Zen practice and the psychotherapeutic enterprise.

In particular, I found his thoughtful examination of self at once
evocative and refreshingly straightforward. His examination of the issues of boundaries in both clinical and zen teacher-student relationships is intelligent and realistic. And his comments on transference and its relationship to a Buddhist conception of ego are of particular interest.

In psychoanalytic circles lately there has been a growing interest in Zen and Buddhist psychology. I believe that Zen students and mental health professionals alike will be in Magid's debt for a long time to come.

Professor Dojun Cook is one rare bird. Not only is he a translator of great learning, he is also a dyed-in-the-wool Zen practitioner.

His years of study and practice with Taizan Maezumi Roshi at the Zen Center of Los Angeles enable him to bring these texts to beautiful clarity.

Reading Dogen Zenji can be a challenging exercise. Translating him is infinitely more so. Dr. Cook has shown himself equal to the task. This book is a great boon to thoughtful Buddhists everywhere.

Mary Rakow alters my mind as few recent writers have done.

I am caught in her epic pilgrimage through the nonlinear stations of her protagonist Barbara's psychic crucifixion, and haunted by her ability to ultimately create such a profound whole from so many shards of stained glass.

Her journey back to meaning from the state of utter collapse with which the novel begins is heroic from psychological and spiritual perspectives alike.

The story she tells, punctuated with the poetry of Paul Celan and the high art of communicating via white space on the page, transcends its manifest content: a woman's personal holocaust and its aftermath.

Rakow presents more than words; she deals in moments, in breaths, in the spaces between unconscious experience and conscious recognition.

Hers is the search for the unthought known.

She has given us more than a book; it is an epiphany.

Much has been made of catastrophic events which change a person's life, and this memoir is certainly all of that. But it is also far more.

In a voice as honest as the unsentimental New Mexico sky of her childhood and adolescence, Dunn shares with us her matrix of relationships with family, friends, mentors, and perhaps most of all with her horse, Harley, who emerges as all of these.

Following on the heels of her novel, Failing Paris, this account of a woman discovering her courage in the wake of grave injury hints at a thread of richly personal narrative well begun, and with important promise for the future.

This is the beginning of what is likely to be a mojor talent's career. Claudia Acuna has bypassed most of the cliches of generic scat singing and derivative phrasing to achieve a truly personal and highly original reading of her covers; her acquired language, American English, rings true as she sings it. To the unsophisticated ear, her innovative and freewheeling pitch changes may seem off, but to older and more sophisticated listeners, to hear her sing is to be in the presence of a living experience and a uniquely personal and soulful perspective on life, love, and loss. Not to be missed. Hearing her in person in Los Angeles for three consecutive nights confirms the promise of her CD; she continues to grow in subtlety and complexity, as do her extraordinarily accomplished pianist and bassist, whose work is compelling and worthy of her gifts.

"Unleashing the Warrior Within" is far more than a mere rehash of longstanding martial arts principles.

I've found its teachings invaluable in mobilizing commitment to accomplishing difficult goals, especially in situations where ambivalence and self-doubt have been getting in the way.

Bukido is far more than a fighting system; it is about living with clarity and responsibility, and acting with all one's being to accomplish what needs to be accomplished.

As an aspect of meditation in action, it brings a vivid and balanced sensibility into the arena of stress management and decision-making. Machowicz' cognitive strategies for assessing situations and developing optimal responses form an especially well-grounded model for all walks of life.

This is not just a book to be read and set aside; it should be re-read many times to allow its deceptively simple principles to unfold in the life of the reader.