About Entering Zen

Entering Zen, by Ben Howard. Whitlock Publishing, 2011.

Part memoir, part almanac, and part primer on meditation, this collection of seventy-five essays is addressed to anyone who might wish to take up the practice of meditation, or deepen an existing practice, or explore the nuances and complexities of the Zen tradition.

“Zen has many faces and one heart. This wise volume of essays by writer and Zen practitioner Ben Howard is a powerful invitation to stop and look deeply into one’s life and see below the surface into its great potential. A book for those who practice meditation, it is also an adventure for those who don’t; the beauty of the writing and the delight of the insights that our author shares with us are enriching and surprising. This is one of those literary treasures that will become a classic in its own time.”

–Roshi Joan Halifax, Abbot, Upaya Zen Center and author of Being with Dying

“Using his own observations and the nature of reality, interspersed with pithy quotations from contemporary and ancient Zen masters as well as lines from poets, baseball players, neighbors, and friends, Howard has written a refreshingly unpretentious, down-home account of the practice of Zen. He warns of the dangers of naming things, yet offers a clear-eyed investigation into how language can, indeed, express the ineffable. He illuminates personal ephiphanies in a way that brings us fully into the realm of pure experience, beyond duality.

–Shinge Roko Sherry Chayat Roshi, Abbot, Dai Bosatsu Zendo and the Zen Center of Syracuse

“Without any pretension, but with careful prose and a subtle poetic skill, Howard reminds me here of what I first encountered (years before) in his essays on Irish writing “The Pressed Melodeon” and more recently in his “Leaf, Sunlight, Asphalt” (2009) verses: the calm, recollected power of tranquility amidst energy.”

– John L. Murphy

To listen to an interview with the author, go to: http://wskg.org/radio/off-the-page/2011-8-16.aspx.