From its simple mimeographed beginnings 40 years ago, the San Francisco Zen Center's subscription magazine, Wind Bell, has matured to celebrate its great reach in this first-ever, handsome treasury. It is ably edited by Wenger (Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness), the San Francisco Zen Center's Dean of Buddhist Studies and Zen Center Publications. He has crafted an open door for the curious, the nostalgic and the devoted to see the seminal work of this Zen center, arguably the foremost in America, in a city whose Zen history can be traced back more than a century. After Gretel Ehrlich's sweeping, clarifying foreword, the first section contains four selections from Wind Bell's "one consistent touchstone": founder Suzuki Roshi's lectures. The second section embodies the center's dharma as expressed through its former abbots, abbesses and teachers. Section three features visiting teachers such as Robert Thurman, the first ordained American-Tibetan Buddhist monk, and the venerable Vietnamese spiritual leader Thich Nhat Hahn. Section four explores elements of traditional practice, including dharma transmission, while the final section, "Everyday Zen," embraces the commonplace sublimeness of child-rearing, cooking, painting, the lessons of trees and much more. Through graceful, quiet design, this book's ample illustrations reveal the places and faces of Buddhism's American foundation. This simple, rich book captures Zen's durable and ephemeral strength. (Jan.)
