It’s disappointing that this incoherent mess of a book was written by one of the better contemporary writers on Zen Buddhism, Gesshin Claire Greenwood, author of the excellent blog That’s So Zen.

This book is so different in style, tone and content from her blog, I suspect the fault is more with her editor at Wisdom Publications — although, if I hadn’t read her blog, I would have assumed that her book didn’t have an editor at all. The prose in her blog is usually careful, serious and con...