If you are tired of unreadable and meaningless Zen translations, start here.

If you are tired of long and repetitive commentaries missing the point; tired of breaking through a thousand footnotes in countless books before you can understand a poem, this series might interest you.

Here, texts and stories from the ancient teachers were selected, rendered and ordered so they can comment and clarify each other with minimum intervention. Thus, even if you find yourself right in the middle of a perplexing mystery, you will probably discover revealing clues in the next chapters. The texts and volumes were arranged through underlying relations meant to privilege and encourage a certain kind of wisdom that is beyond knowledge.

This is not a book “for beginners,” at least not in that limited sense usually applied to these books, meaning “fake.” For example, if you find a book titled “Painting for Beginners,” you already know that book will not teach you how to paint like the masters. What it will actually teach you is not “painting,” but some prelusive activities that will hopefully allow you to paint later…

Think of a river offering “swimming for anybody.”

The actual river. Not some drawing or the projection of a river, where you are supposed to train before entering the water.

This volume will throw you in the river. It includes the Heart Sutra, poetry by Hanshan (Cold Mountain), Ryokan (Great Fool), Ikkyu (Crazy Cloud) and every kind of classical text from Zen literature.