Singing and Dancing Are the Voice of the Law: A Commentary on Hakuin’s Song of Zazen

This is one of the best books on Zen and Zen practice that I have read in years. Bussho uses a well-known Zen song/poem to elucidate the key features of Zen meditation, practice and life….It brings the famous Zen master’s teaching alive while also showing how it is relevant to Zen practice in the 21st century. -Tim Burkett, author of Nothing Holy About It and Zen in the Age of Anxiety

Singing and Dancing Are the Voice of the Law introduces us to one of the great works of Zen literature, The Song of Zazen. Zen teacher Bussho Lahn illuminates Hakuin’s enigmatic poem in plain language, unpacking it and applying it to contemporary life. His book offers a wealth of information on the context and content of this eighteenth-century work, clearly evoking its themes of abiding wisdom, meditation, compassionate self-regard, and our own everyday life’s potential to express deep spiritual truth.

Short stanza by short stanza, this exceptionally readable and deeply engaging book shows how the poem’s teachings and invitations are as applicable now as they were when they were first written nearly three centuries ago. Lahn offers readers an intuitive and progressive path of exploration of their spiritual lives, regardless of their faith tradition.