Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness: Zen Talks on the Sandokai

"Suzuki Roshi's gentle wisdom shines through these intimate talks on the Sandokai. I am grateful to Mel Weitsman and Michael Wenger for their labor of love." Robert Aitken, author of Taking the Path of Zen and Original Dwelling Place

"Buddhists and lovers of Buddhism who have read and reread Suzuki Roshi's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind over the years, as well as those who are just discovering the wisdom of this wonderful, profound teacher for the first time, will welcome this new book of lectures on Zen training as a gift we did not expect to receive. Branching Streams should be read slowly and savored." Rita M. Gross, author of Buddhism After Patriarchy

"Through the poetry of knowing and doing, Shunryu Suzuki points out a path of practical wisdom for Americans today, in a voice so close at hand it can touch their inner experience of the interdependence of existence, open their ears to hear its harmony of difference and sameness, and awaken their willingness to be true to its mystery." Stephen Tipton, co-author of Habits of the Heart

"A wonderful manifestation of Suzuki Roshi's fresh insights and teachings�small, pithy, wild nuts delicious to anyone who chooses to taste them." Peter Matthiessen "Muryo Roshi," author of Sal Si Puedes (Escape If You Can)

Author Biography: Shunryu Suzuki Roshi came to the United States in 1959, leaving his temple in Yaizu, Japan, to serve as priest for the Japanese American congregation at Sokoji Temple in San Francisco. In 1967 he and his students created the first Zen Buddhist monastery in America at Tassajara in the coastal mountains south of San Francisco. Suzuki Roshi died in 1971 at age 67, a year and a half after delivering his teaching on the Sandokai. He may have had a premonition of his coming death when he said that it was common for Zen teachers in the Soto tradition to lecture on the Sandokai near the end of life.

Mel Weitsman is the former abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center and current abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center. Michael Wenger is Dean of Buddhist Studies at the San Francisco Zen Center.