No Beginning, No End: The Intimate Heart of Zen

In No Beginning, No End, Zen master Jakusho Kwong-roshi shows us how to treasure the ordinary activities of our daily lives through an understanding of simple Buddhist practices and ideas. The author’s spontaneous, poetic, and pragmatic teachings—so reminiscent of his spiritual predecessor Shunryu Suzuki (Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind)—transport us on an exciting journey into the very heart of Zen and its meaningful traditions. Because Kwong-roshi can transmit the most intimate thing in the most accessible way, we learn how to ignite our own vitality, wisdom, and compassion and awaken a feeling of intimacy with the world. It is like having a conversation with our deepest and wisest self.

Jakusho Kwong-roshi was originally inspired to study Zen because of zenga, the ancient art of Zen calligraphy. Throughout this book he combines examples of his unique style with less well-known stories from the Zen tradition, personal anecdotes—including moving and humorous stories of his training with Suzuki-roshi—and his own lucid and inspiring teachings to draw all readers into this intimate expression of the enlightening world of Zen: the world of who we are.

JAKUSHO KWONG is a successor in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki-roshi. He has been teaching Zen in the United States and Europe for more than thirty years. He is the founder and abbot of the Sonoma Mountain Zen Center outside of Santa Rosa, California. In 1995 he was given the title of Dendo Kyoshi, Zen teacher, by the Soto School in Japan. He is one of nine Western Zen teachers to receive this acknowledgment. “Zen,” he says, “is the aliveness we bring to each moment.”

PETER LEVITT is the author of Fingerpainting on the Moon: Writing and Creativity as a Path to Freedom (forthcoming from Harmony Books). His eight books of poetry include One Hundred Butterflies and Bright Root, Dark Root. He is also the editor of The Heart of Understanding by Thich Nhat Hanh. Peter has been practicing Zen for many years and has been a student of Jakusho Kwong’s since 1983.