Download or read book Once-Born, Twice-Born Zen written by Conrad Hyers and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2004-01-26 with total page 131 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Once-Born, Twice-Born Zen' is a fresh treatment of the two major Zen schools of Japan. Its biographical and comparative approach is both original and very readable. The use of William James' typology, along with other phenomenological categories, provides the reader with helpful handles for distinguishing the schools, as well as similar tendencies in other religious traditions. The book should make an excellent text for introductory and middle-level courses in which one is trying to get students to develop categories for understanding religious experience and behavior. Readers will see something of themselves in the range of biographical examples given, and will detect their own tendencies through the use of this method. -- Bardwell Smith