“This books flows with the essence of the transmitted Zen – of the transmitted Zen which passes through Bodhidharma and Deshimaru. It is like the voice of the valley. It is like the stream. It splashes an infinite echo.” Zenji Reirin Yamada, former chief of Eihei-ji temple.
“The voice of the valley” contains the kusens, or oral teachings of a contemporary Master of the transmission, along with a brief history of the origins of Zen. For the first time, these teachings have not been separated from the context – the practice of zazen. The American editor of the book, Philippe Coupey, has said: “By excluding the context from the text, as has been done in the past, one is quickly misled into believing that wisdom is somehow received instantaneously and without a background in meditation.”
