Through Forests of Every Color

Awakening with Koans

By: Joan Sutherland

Narrated by: Joan Sutherland

An intimate spiritual and literary journey exploring how Zen koans make us permeable to the joys and the anguish of this life—and to the primordial mystery we glimpse behind the veil of the everyday.

Koans are the record of paradoxical and provocative exchanges between Zen masters and their students that developed in medieval China. These exchanges, though often elaborated through commentary, have also been boiled down to one-line questions or statements to be held in meditation and daily life. Famous examples include, "What is the sound of one hand?" and "Not knowing is most intimate." In Through Forests of Every Color, renowned Zen teacher Joan Sutherland reimagines the koan tradition with allegiance to the root spirit of the koans and to their profound potential for vivifying, subverting, and sanctifying our lives.

Interlinked essays on “koans as art,” “keeping company with koans,” and “walking the koan way” intersperse with beautifully translated renditions of dozens of traditional Zen koans. Sutherland also shares innovative koans culled from Western literature, as well as teachings on how to create idiosyncratic koans or "turning phrases" from the circumstances of one's own life. “First honored is your yearning, the preparation made on faith that there is something that will receive you if you make yourself ready,” writes Sutherland of the koan seeker. “Bathed—attended to, washed free of complications—and then aspiring to the deepest kind of beauty—receptive, brave, dedicated, openhearted. Already you’ve begun to look like the thing you’re looking for.”

©2022 Joan Sutherland (P)2022 Shambhala Publications

Wonderful book with great audio

This book has such great insights into Zen/Chan koan practice and Joan has such a pleasant dreamlike voice. It makes it perfect for listening during the day or at night when you want to drift off to sleep just letting her words wash over you so that your subconscious can work on understanding it even while you’re sleeping.

expert and enlightening , read by the author

Sutherland is one of the great Western masters of the Koan tradition, but has not published as much and is not out in the public eye as much as others like John Tarrant. This long-awaited book is excellent and the audio version, read by Sutherland herself, is well worth your time. I just finished it, I'm going to listen to it again.

so much beauty

This is such an incredible work of beauty. And with Joan reading it, even more powerful. A+

Brilliant

For the first time in my zen life I’m interested in koan studies! I’ve been listening to this over and over again. Beautifully written, engaging, and deeply reparative to me as a woman.