title: Entangling Vines: A Classic Collection of Zen Koans
author: Thomas Yuho Kirchner
description: "A masterpiece. It will be our inspiration for 10,000 years." (Robert Aitken, author of Taking the Path of Zen and The Gateless Barrier)<br /><br />"A wonderful book, a book to take if you are planning to be shipwrecked on a desert island; it is the book I open every day, and teach from every day. It is surprising, lucid, scholarly, alive, unassuming, and it goes deep." (John Tarrant, author of Bring Me the Rhinoceros and Other Koans That Will Save Your Life)<br /><br />"This book summon us into a dynamic immediacy with life itself." (Wendy Egyoku Nakao, Abbot of the Zen Center of Los Angeles)<br /><br />"An excellent translation of an important collection." (<i>Japanese Journal of Religious Studies</i>)<br /><br />"Anyone who plays in the fields of koan introspection will welcome this book." (Melissa Myozen Blacker, coeditor of The Book of Mu)<br /><br />"Working with these koans is a challenging and joyous enterprise." (Ross Bolleter, author of Dongshan's Five Ranks)
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  Entangling Vines
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00003.unknown)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Wisdom Publications, Inc.
  
  
  199 Elm Street
  
  
  Somerville, MA 02144 USA
  
  
  [www.wisdompubs.org](http://www.wisdompubs.org)
  
  
  © 2013 Thomas Yūhō Kirchner
  
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  
  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic
  or mechanical, including photography, recording, or by any information storage
  and retrieval system or technologies now known or later developed, without
  permission in writing from the publisher.
  
  
  _Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data_
  
  
  Shūmon kattōshū. English.
  
  
  Entangling vines : Zen koans of the Shūmon kattōshū / translated and annotated
  by Thomas Yūhō Kirchner ; foreword by Nelson Foster ; introduction by Ueda
  Shizuteru. — First Wisdom edition.
  
  
  pages cm
  
  
  Previously published: Saga Tenryuji : Tenryu-ji Institute for Philosophy and
  Religion, 2004.
  
  
  Includes bibliographical references and index.
  
  
  ISBN 1-61429-077-6 (cloth : alk. p