ZEN AND THE SAMURAI

This audio programs is drawn from Zen and the Japanese Culture, the author's highly respected history of how Japanese culture accepted and influenced Zen, the simplest branch of the Buddhist faith. Anecdotes from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and the absence of intellectual language give this abridgment a timeless, spiritual quality. The beauty of the stories and rhythm of the language help the intellectual Western mind comprehend Zen philosophy. Reed is a Zen Buddhist scholar and teacher in his own right; his immersion into this tradition allows him to speak with emotional and spiritual authority. His steady tone and absence of pretense draw the listener into the ideas, not the performance. If the listener can encounter this program without permitting worldly distractions, the material will be accessible and the listening enjoyable. T.W. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 96]