Masterful Zen and Sufi Koans

FROM THE INTRODUCTION

In my practice as an artist in abstract calligraphy, a form of modern art, I frequently feel a reliance on Zen mentalities to stabilize my artistic despair, or else to stabilize the mad urge to extend uselessly in all directions. Zen becomes a rational force,

And, as I noticed when I quit the middle school soccer team, sometimes the urge to abandon life’s everyday forms has value which goes well beyond what life anticipates.

In these verses, some of which seem as ancient as they are apparently original, and others which seem as convincing as they are conventional, glimmers of practical and otherworldly wisdom shine through the aperture of the unexpected contradiction.