David Schiller specializes in “companion” books or calendars. He organizes, compiles, edits or arranges rather than write. This “little” book was a Christmas gift to me. It’s about 3” high, 3” wide and 1” thick, with single “sayings” per page and font adjusted to “fit” the page.

Rather than underline the one-page “essays” I like, I dog-eared them instead. Since Christmas I’ve gone through it many times, usually adding a dog-ear or two each time. It gives a taste of Zen for the seeker and curious alike. It includes sayings, parables, haiku, koans and poetry from both Eastern and Western sources. Schiller chose contents “whose maverick spirit points to a different way of looking at the world: directly, openly, joyously.”

Here’s some excerpts. Louis Armstrong: “If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.” Tom Stoppard: “Every exit is an entry into somewhere else.” Ursula K. Le Guin: “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” Basho: “Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.” Socrates: “Those who want the fewest things are nearest to the gods.” Meister Eckhart: “The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.” Alfred North Whitehead: “We think in generalities, but we live in detail.” Teilhard de Chardin: “The whole of life lies in the verb seeing.” Dogen: “Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken… The whole moon and the sky are reflected in one dewdrop on a blade of grass.”

It is fitting to conclude with koans. Zen koan: “When the Many are reduced to One, to what is the One reduced?” Modern physics koan: “Picture a massless particle.” [Hint: Picture it at rest.] Zen koan: “What is the color of wind?” I Ching: “When the way comes to an end, change – having changed, pass through.” Zen koan: “When you can do nothing, what can you do?” G.K. Chesterton: “You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.” Tao Te Ching: “Act without doing; work without effort.” Zen koan: “What is your face before your mother and father were born?” Theodore Roethke: “The self says, I am; the heart says, I am less; the spirit says, I am nothing.” [Hint: nothing = no thing.] Western koan (Bertolt Brecht): “What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?” (Who said koans can’t also be fun?!)

This little book by David Schiller gives you many “sayings” to think about – some (like koans) may have few words but require a special way of seeing, whereas others can be both immediately and deeply insightful. Mediation, contemplation or seeing with eyes shut makes for a good stimulant. Enjoy!