Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master's Lessons in Living a Life That Matters Paperback - 1997

First line

When I first began to study Zen, my teacher gave me a koan, a Zen question, to answer: "How do you go further from the top of a hundred-foot pole?"

Media reviews

"Both a manual for spiritual transformation and a call to action." New Age Journal

"Taking the Path of Zen and Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind have introduced scores of Americans to Zen Buddhism in the last two decades. Now, these two mini-classics are joined by a new book that promises to be an even more meaningful introduction to Zen--as well as the growing 'socially engaged Buddhism' movement." --Donn Fry, Seattle Times

"A delicious confection made of down-to-earth Zen wisdom and a deeply heartful demonstration of compassion in action." --Ram Dass

"Instructions is stimulating and insightful precisely because it is so well grounded in the fundamental teachings of Dogen Zenji and others--exceptionally practical teachings, moreover, which chart a course for the development of that 'social-action Zen' (led most forcefully by Roshi Glassman) which promises to become the Way of Zen here in America." --Peter Matthiessen

"A recipe for an enlightened life, Instructions to the Cook speaks volumes about finding nourishment in a voracious world, where so many things--from consumerism to unemployment--can create hunger, and where contentment can seem tantalizingly remote, an aroma from someone else's window." --Deborah Jerome-Cohen, New York Daily News

"A more authentic teaching by a more authentic person than Bernard Glassman, we are not likely to see in our times. He not only teaches all this, he has done it all." --Thomas Berry