Treading the Path of Zen

A hundred old koans. This book meets them the way you'd meet a stranger on the road — with a jab, a laugh, a craving for lunch.The author doesn't explain the koans; scholars have done that, by the cartload. He answers them — bluntly, in the present tense, from wherever he happens to be. A monk asks whether a dog has Buddha-nature, and the neighbor's dog just barks. The Buddha holds up a flower, and two and a half thousand years on, it's still holding up.This is not a book that will teach you Zen, or hand you the key at the door. The old teachers called their koans the gateless gate — a barrier with no opening, that lets through only those already ready to pass. Come looking to be let in, and you may find no door at all. But if you've walked a little longer and deeper — a few years, a few losses, a few turnings — you'll find you have always been inside — no gate needed — and this is good company for the walking.Zen without the incense: earthy, funny, unguarded. Not a path laid out for you to follow, but one man treading it out loud, stumbling as he goes. If you're with him, you stumble together.