One Bird, One Stone

“Anyone looking for insightful quotes, humor, Zen wisdom, or even just a good story will find something in these bite-sized anecdotes.” —Tricycle Magazine

Drawn from the archives of major Zen centers in America and interviews with some of the most seminal figures of American Zen, including Philip Kapleau, Bernie Glassman, Gary Snyder, and Walter Nowick, One Bird, One Stone presents the notable encounters between teachers and students, the moments of insight and wisdom, the quotable quotes, and the humor of Zen as it has flowered in America over the last one hundred-plus years.

Murphy, a Zen student and an accomplished writer, conducted numerous personal interviews and distilled over one hundred pithy stories. He covers Zen masters Suzuki, Maezumi, Seung Sahn, Robert Aitken, and Philip Kapleau along with earnest students Gary Snyder, Alan Watts, and Philip Whalen and others.

“Sean Murphy’s eloquent book is thought-provoking and lovely. This collection of 108 new teaching stories in the American Zen Buddhist tradition is a poetic account of the transplanting of Zen Buddhism to this new Western soil and some of the various ways it has taken root here in the lives of a wide spectrum of teachers and practitioners.” —Sharon Salzberg, New York Times–bestselling author and cofounder of The Insight Meditation Center

“The book gives you a profound glimpse into the well of the Zen mind.” —Santa Fe New Mexican

“Stories to inspire the mind and to find the true heart.” —Stephen and Ondrea Levine, authors of Who Dies?

“Intelligent, funny, wise and, best of all, speaks to the heart.” —Rafe Martin, Zen Bow