Two Zen Classics

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Summary: A journey deep into the heart of Zen koans
Review: This is a new translation into English both of Mumonkan and Hekiganroku made by a Japanese High School Teacher of English and edited by a Lecturer at the University of Cambridge.The author was enrolled in Zen practice and the study of koans for 72 years. His comments are technical and clear-sighted notes on specific sentences of each koan keeping in mind that the large majority of Zen practitioners all around the world do not study koans in a monastery or under the supervision of a suitable teacher mastering koans. As a consequence it contains a great deal of interpretive material exchanged currently in face-to-face meetings between the teacher and disciple. The author of this translation was a layman, not a monk, and considered koans as an adequate tool for the advancement in the awareness and awakening process and not as occult arcana to held control over students. This book is more comprehensible if the companion book of the author, Zen Training: Methods and Philosophy is read before or simultaneously.