Examines the Zen principle of mu and presents the writings of over forty teachers on the practice of mu.

This lush, beautifully illustrated narrative breathes humanity and warmth into one of the most famous and enigmatic koans of the Zen tradition. The Story of Mu uses luminous illustrations and a mythic narrative structure to convey the great potential for peace and enlightenment that we all carry hidden within ourselves. Shot through with ineffable “thisness and thussness,” Mu spins a visually rich, cosmogonic fable about the origins of the universe of space, time, matter, and life. It also touches something lost but always present within the human heart: an awakeness that is without flaw, from the beginning before the beginning.

According to Churchward, the lost Pacific continent of Mu "extended from somewhere north of Hawaii to the south as far as the Fijis and Easter Island." He claimed Mu was the site of the Garden of Eden and the home of 64,000,000 inhabitants known as the Naacals. Its civilization, which flourished 50,000 years before Churchward's day, was technologically more advanced than his own, and the ancient civilizations of India, Babylon, Persia, Egypt and the Mayas were merely the decayed remnants of its colonies. In this, his second book, first published in 1931, Churchward tells the story of the colonial expansion of Mu and the influence of the highly developed Mu culture on the rest of the world. Her first colonies were in North America and the Orient, while other colonies had been started in India, Egypt and Yucatan. Churchward claimed to have gained his knowledge from fragments of text written by the Naacals in a dead language taught to him by an Indian priest. Chapters include: The Origin of Man; The Eastern Lines; Ancient North America; Stone tablets from the Valley of Mexico; South America; Atlantis; Western Europe; The Greeks; Egypt; The Western Lines; India; Southern India; The Great Uighur Empire; Babylonia; Intimate Hours with the Rishi; more. A fascinating book on the diffusion of mankind around the world--originating in a now lost continent in the Pacific! Tons of illustrations!

I was incapable of imagining what I had never seen...

In The Gateless Gate, one of modern Zen Buddhism's uniquely influential masters offers classic commentaries on the Mumonkan, one of Zen's greatest collections of teaching stories. This translation was compiled with the Western reader in mind, and includes Koan Yamada's clear and penetrating comments on each case. Yamada played a seminal role in bringing Zen Buddhism to the West from Japan, going on to be the head of the Sanbo Kyodan Zen Community. The Gateless Gate would be invaluable if only for the translation and commentary alone, yet it's loaded with extra material and is a fantastic resource to keep close by: An in-depth Introduction to the History of Zen Practice Lineage charts Japanese-to-Chinese and Chinese-to-Japanese conversion charts for personal names, place names, and names of writings Plus front- and back-matter from ancient and modern figures: Mumon, Shuan, Kubota Ji'un, Taizan Maezumi, Hugo Enomiya-Lasalle, and Yamada Roshi's son, Masamichi Yamada. A wonderful inspiration for the koan practitioner, and for those with a general interest in Zen Buddhism.

Steven Heine offers a compelling examination of the Mu Koan, widely considered to be the single best known and most widely circulated and transmitted koan record of the Zen school of Buddhism.