Zen Shorts

Jon J. Muth

Book cover

Nice picture book with pretty illustrations and three short zen parables, told in a style that I think should be accessible to kids. My favorite is the good luck/bad luck story where things happen to a farmer and his friends keep saying “what good luck!” or “what bad luck!”, and he keeps deferring judgment and the goodness/badness of the overall consequences keeps changing. (As the book notes, this story has its origins in Daoism and predates zen.) Seems like it would be a good book to share with kids.

My Goodreads rating: 4 stars

IndieBound