The Inquiring Mind has been around since the fall of 1984 as a Buddhist journal published twice a year and offered freely to readers without a subscription fee (donations are accepted). Writers and artists work without recompense. This paperback brings together some of the best material from the journal chosen by Barbara Gates and Wes Nisker, coeditors and cofounders. In making their selections, they have chosen a smorgasbord of interviews, personal stories, philosophical essays, and poetry from men and women and various schools of Buddhism. The eight thematic sections of this anthology are:

• Path of the Elders (teachers who have played a key role in bringing the wisdom of the East to the West)
• Living and Dying in a Body (the cycle of the body through vitality, aging, sickness, and death)
• Science of Mind (interfaces of the sciences of the East and the West)
• The Dharma and the Drama (personal stories about the promises and perils of everyday life)
• Complementary Paths (differing views of Dharma)
• Practices (a range of skillful means from jhana to tantra)
• Artists and Jesters of the Dharma (fiction, poetry, and humor)
• Tending the World (compassionate action from endangered forests to the prison yard)

Here are some of the pieces we found most interesting in this paperback:

• Joseph Goldstein on teachers as spiritual friends
• stories about Dipa Ma like the one about the stillness she created in her Calcutta apartment
• an interview with Ajahn Amaro who became a monk because he sees himself as a hedonist at heart
• an article on Frank Ostaseki and the Zen Hospice Project where he advices those who work with the dying to "stay close and do nothing"
• Susan Moon's description of her depression
• Barbara Gates on sitting with garbage
• The Rev. Heng Sure on Dharma laughter
• Robert Thurman on practices to celebrate impermanence