The Empty Mirror: Experiences in a Japanese Zen Monastery

Seen by many as a contemporary classic, Janwillem van de Wetering's small and admirable memoir records the experiences of a young Dutch student--later a widely celebrated mystery writer--who spent a year and a half as a novice monk in a Japanese Zen Buddhist monastery. As Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, author of Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, has written, The Empty Mirror "should be very encouraging for other Western seekers."

Janwillem van de Wetering has lived with his wife on the Maine Coast for twenty years, but before that he lived literally all over the world --Holland, South Africa, London, Japan, South America. He is the author of a successful mystery series.