In 2019, I edited the English translation of Zen Seeds, a book by Japanese Buddhist nun Shundo Aoyama Roshi. Now in her nineties, Aoyama Roshi is among the most celebrated Zen teachers in contemporary Japan. In addition to prolific work as a teacher and writer, she achieved a number of firsts as a woman in the historically patriarchal school of Sōtō Zen.
Here are the opening lines of Zen Seeds:
“The water of the valley stream is always flowing. It races on, not pausing for even an instant. Its sound, to me, is the sound of time.
The water of time glistens on the riverbed of the universe. Though theirs is a much slower flow, stones, trees, houses, and towns are flowing too. Human beings and all things that have life flow. Thought and culture, too, flow. That all these appear to be unchanging is but an illusion.”
Books are little accretions of thought and culture, so by Aoyama Roshi’s ineluctable logic, they flow too.
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Every week, I talk with aspiring nonfiction authors about their wishes for a book—whether it’s just an idea or is partly or fully drafted. If you’d like to talk about your book, I’d love to hear from you.