This expanded edition of the highly acclaimed investigation of Zen teaching in America, by the founder and editor of America's first Buddhist magazine, lays bare the issues at the heart of the Zen mission. Through in-depth portraits of five American Zen masters, Tworkov creates a trenchant sociological picture of an important strand of American spiritual life.

The meat of the book — the profiles of five American Zen teachers (Robert Aitken, Jakusho Kwong, Bernard Glassman, Maurine Stuart, and Richard Baker) — is informative and, with one exception, appears balanced.

The exception is Tworkov's apparent sympathy for Richard Baker. She thinks that he was treated badly, and this comes across in her writeup of him. Yet Baker's own words reveal him to be a classic addict — addicted to work and Zen, perhaps, but addicted nonetheless. So without knowing anything about Baker's time at San Francisco Zen Center besides what comes through in Tworkov's sympathetic portrait, I am confident that her sympathy is misplaced.

The afterword, however, is unbearable. Tworkov has a romantic fetish for "enlightenment" and thus disapproves of the general turn away from "enlightenment" in American Zen in the late 20th century. (Tworkov's fetish for enlightenment explains her sympathy for Baker, whom she plainly believes had strong "enlightenment" experiences.) Tworkov's disdain for American "everyday Zen" permeates her afterword, which is not worth reading. ( )