The Days of Awe encompass the weeks preceding Rosh Hashanah up to Yom Kippur, a period in which Jews take part in a series of rituals and prayers that reenact the journey of the soul through the world from birth to death. This is a period of contemplation and repentance, comparable to Lent and Ramadan. Yet, for Rabbi Alan Lew, the real purpose of this annual passage is for us to experience brokenheartedness and open our heart to God.

In This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared, Lew has marked out a journey of seven distinct stages, one that draws on these rituals to awaken our soul and wholly transform us. Weaving together Torah readings, Buddhist parables, Jewish fables and stories from his own life, Lew lays bare the meanings of this ancient Jewish passage. He reveals the path from terror to acceptance, confusion to clarity, doubt to belief, and from complacency to awe.

In the tradition of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, This Is Real And You Are Completely Unprepared enables believers of all faiths to reconnect to their faith with a passion and intimacy that will resonate throughout the year.

This engaging contemplation of maturity addresses the long neglected topic of what it means to grow up, and provides a hands-on guide for skilfully navigating the demands of our adult lives.

Growing up happens whether we like it or not, but maturity must be cultivated. Challenged to consider his own sense of maturity while mentoring a group of teenage boys, Fischer began to investigate our preconceptions about what it means to be an adult and shows how crucial true maturity is to leading an engaged, fulfilled life. Taking Our Places details the marks of a mature person and shows how these attributes can help alleviate our suffering and enrich our relationships. Discussing such qualities as awareness, responsibility, humour, acceptance, and humility, Fischer brings a fresh and at times surprising new perspective that can turn old ideas on their heads and reinvigorate our understanding of what it means to be mature.

It's in this spirit that Norman Fischer offers his unique, Zen-based commentary on the Lojong. Though traditionally a practice of Tibetan Buddhism, the power of the Lojong extends to other Buddhist traditions--and even to other spiritual traditions as well. As Fischer explores the 59 slogans through a Zen lens, he shows how people from a range of faiths and backgrounds can use Lojong to generate the insight, resilience, and compassion they seek.

Dividing the book into three parts--Setting Forth, Disaster, and Return--Fischer charts the course of Odysseus's familiar wanderings. Readers come to see this ancient hero as a flawed human being who shares their own struggles and temptations, such as yielding to desire or fear or greed, and making peace with family. Featuring thoughtful meditations, illuminating anecdotes from Fischer's and his students' lives, and stories from many wisdom traditions including Buddhist, Judaic, and Christian, Sailing Home shows the way to greater purpose in our own lives. The book's literary dimension expands its appeal beyond the Buddhist market to a wider spiritual audience and to anyone interested in the teachings of myth and story.

In frightening times, we wish the world could be otherwise. With a touch of imagination, it can be. Imagination helps us see what's hidden, and it shape-shifts reality's roiling twisting waves. In this inspiring reframe of a classic Buddhist teaching, Zen teacher Norman Fischer writes that the paramitas, or six perfections--generosity, ethical conduct, patience, joyful effort, meditation, and understanding--can help us reconfigure the world we live in.

Ranging from our everyday concerns about relationships, ethics, and consumption to our artistic inspirations and broadest human yearnings, Fischer depicts imaginative spiritual practice as a necessary resource for our troubled times.

This engaging contemplation of maturity addresses the long neglected topic of what it means to grow up, and provides a hands-on guide for skilfully navigating the demands of our adult lives.

Growing up happens whether we like it or not, but maturity must be cultivated. Challenged to consider his own sense of maturity while mentoring a group of teenage boys, Fischer began to investigate our preconceptions about what it means to be ࠮ adultߡnd shows how crucial true maturity is to leading an engaged, fulfilled life.

Taking Our Places details the marks of a mature person and shows how these attributes can help alleviate our suffering and enrich our relationships. Discussing such qualities as awareness, responsibility, humour, acceptance, and humility, Fischer brings a fresh, and at times surprising, new perspective that can turn old ideas on their heads and reinvigorate our understanding of what it means to be mature.

Looking backwards at a life lived, walking forward into more life to live built on all that, trying not to be too much influenced by what's already been said and done, not to be held to a point of view or an identity previously expressed, trying to be surprised and undone and maybe even dismayed by what lies ahead.--Norman Fischer

Norman Fischer is a Zen priest, poet, and translator whose writings, teachings, and commitment to interfaith dialogue have supported and inspired Buddhist, Jewish, and other spiritual practitioners for decades. When You Greet Me I Bow spans the entirety of Norman Fischer's career and is the first collection of his writings on Buddhist philosophy and practice. Broken into four sections--the joy and catastrophe of relationship; thinking, writing, and emptiness; cultural encounters; and social engagement--this book allows us to see the fascinating development of the mind and interests of a gifted writer and profoundly committed practitioner.

Raised in a Conservative Jewish family, Fischer embraced the twin practices of Zen Buddhism and innovative poetics in San Francisco in the early 1970s. His work includes original poetry, descriptions of Buddhist practice, translations of the Hebrew psalms, and eclectic writings on a range of topics from Homer to Heidegger to Kabbalah. Both Buddhist priest and participant in avant-garde poetry's Language movement, Fischer has limned the fertile affinities and creative contradictions between Zen and writing, accumulating four decades of rich insights he shares in Experience.

Fischer's work has been deeply enriched through his collaborations with leading rabbis, poets, artists, esteemed Zen Buddhist practitioners, Trappist monks, and renowned Buddhist leaders, among them the Dalai Lama. Alone and with others, he has carried on a deep and sustained investigation into the intersection of writing and consciousness as informed by meditation.

The essays in this artfully curated collection range across divers, fascinating topics such as time, the Heart Sutra, God in the Hebrew psalms, the supreme uselessness of art making, late work as a category of poetic appreciation, and the subtle and dubious notion of religious experience. From the theoretical to the revealingly personal, Fischer's essays, interviews, and notes point toward a dramatic expansion of the sense of religious feeling in writing.

Readers who join Fischer on this path in Experience can discover how language is not a description of experience, but rather an experience itself: shifting, indefinite, and essential.

This unique introduction to Zen teaching and practice is structured as a Q&A, making it a most useful reference for new and seasoned practitioners to look things up. The questioner (Susan Moon) and the answerer (Norman Fischer) are Buddhist teachers and old friends, each with a unique gift for articulation. Their friendly conversation covers not only the basics of Zen Buddhism but a range of issues unique to Zen in America in the twenty-first century, including:

- What is zazen and how do you do it?
- Where did Zen start and where did it come from?
- Will I have an enlightenment experience?
- What is the law of karma in a nutshell?
- What do Zen Buddhists say about rebirth?
- How do you recognize a good, solid Zen teacher?

Moon and Fischer's conversations are both humorous and informative, providing a good basic education in Zen--not only the history, theory, and practice but also contemporary issues such as gender inequality, sexual ethics, and the tension between Asian traditions and the modern American reality.

The conflict Norman Fischer speaks of in this poem is an inherent component of the universe. He writes of the human dilemma, the struggles of daily life, and the desire to 'hold the world in place, ' showing us how not to be mired in any one spot. Freedom is won by tirelessly moving forward. The lines breathe: the poet's breath, and the complexity of his thought, visualized on the page.--Anne Tardos