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"Among the Zen handbooks or primers out there, none fit your hand so simply as these sixty-four poetry-like chapters of Hoag Holmgren’s No Better Place. Like the sixty-four hexagrams of the I Ching, each widens into a far-off state of mind. Turn them over in your thoughts though, and they prove to be guides to where you are standing. Ten in particular, which refer to the 12th century Chinese Oxherding Pictures, point North American Zen back to a mythic world of ancestors. Old-time buddhas, those ancestors. They are our brothers and sisters in the ecology of mind. Thanks to Holmgren’s book, you can stand eyebrow-to-eyebrow with them."  

—Andrew Schelling, Editor of The Wisdom Anthology of North American Buddhist Poetry, translator, poet, essayist


"Says so much so succinctly and insightfully, that reading its brief chapters brings real “Aha!” delight. I look forward to sharing this book with my own Zen students."     

—Rafe Martin Roshi, award-winning author, founding teacher and spiritual director, Endless Path Zendo, New York


"Captures the heart of this journey and beckons one to
step in."

—Peggy Metta Sheehan, Roshi, Zen Center of Denver 

 
"A penetrating and affecting presentation of the Buddha Dharma cast in a thoroughly Western idiom. Hoag's simple, clear prose invites entry in this very place, now."

—Danan Henry Roshi, Dharma heir of Philip Kapleau Roshi, and Diamond Sangha Teacher under Robert Aitken Roshi


"These words will touch and inspire readers to surrender to a joyful experience of compassion for all."

—Jiun Hosen, Osho, Abbess, Bodhi Manda Zen Center



illustrations by Catherine Jao | Ten Ox-herding Pictures (2012) and Enso (2018)
Sumi ink on handmade paper mounted on shikishi
catherine.c.jao@gmail.com  | www.facebook.com/catherine.jao.art