Roaring Stream

The popularity of Zen Buddhism in the West has produced a variety of manuals from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to The Zen of Bowel Movements: A Spiritual Approach to Constipation that explain ways to incorporate the practice of Zen into everyday life. Now, in this single volume, Foster and Shoemaker have gathered the great masterpieces of Zen Buddhist writing from China and Japan. The first section of this marvelous anthology focuses on the writings of Chinese Ch'an Buddhism, out of which the Zen Buddhism of Japan grew, and the second section gathers the writings of students and teachers of Zen Buddhism. Included in this wide-ranging collection are poems, lectures and essays from figures as diverse as Bodhidharma, the Indian Buddhist monk responsible for introducing Buddhism, tea and meditation into China; the great Japanese roshi Dogen; and Basho, the Japanese poet whose style reflects the traditional principles of Zen. A helpful introductory essay placing individual writers in historical context accompanies each selection, and the editors have provided graceful new translations of the primary texts. Because of its scope and beauty, this collection should become the standard against which all other collections of Zen Buddhist writings are measured (Aug.)