It is hoped that the Zen here presented, having been filtered through the experience of a western teacher in his encounter with Western Zen students and enthusiasts, will speak directly to the contemporary men and women and in the familiar accents of our time and culture.

From: Amazon:

I have never read or been interested in books on zen. After seeing this at a book sale for a dollar, I thought I would give it a try. The first section is a series of questions which are called "flashes of zen". These are extremely manageable pieces of zen if you are trying to understand it for the first time, like myself. If you are someone who has read multiple books on this topic already, all the questions/responses may have been things you've heard, but I found it enlightening. I would buy it just for this section alone. The rest of it looks equally as interesting. Roshi describes sesshin "encouragement talks", and commentary on zen beliefs/enlightenment. It isn't aloof and allowed me, an un-zen person, to improve my understanding of Buddhism.

Believing that Buddhist teachings and traditional ceremonies should be adapted to twentieth-century life styles, Kapleau presents an introduction to the philosophy and practice of Zen written especially for American readers

An agreeable, often stimulating collection of odds and ends by the noted Zen Master. Kapleau spent 13 years studying Zen in Japanese monasteries, then wrote his widely read Three Pillars of Zen (1965), and founded the Zen Center in Rochester, N.Y., which he now heads. Here he brings together transcriptions of question-and-answer sessions at the Center, correspondence with his disciples, ""encouragement talks"" given to participants in seven-day closed retreats (sesshin), translations of some key Zen texts, an autobiographical sketch, and various other things. This could have been just another shapeless compilation by somebody too busy to write a book, but it holds up nicely. Kapleau's own personality--calm, clear-headed, incisive, dryly witty, everything one imagines a roshi to be--fuses the disparate pieces into a sort of unity. And the book has been well edited, with a glossary, notes, and an annotated list of recommended books. ""Reading about enlightenment,"" as Kapleau says, ""is like scratching an itch through your shoe,"" but readers who have at least a rudimentary notion of Zen will find him helpful on a broad range of subjects, from morality to meditation, and may even be led to try sitting zazen and other Zen practices. Of course, they would first have to seek out a director at the nearest Zen center, and Kapleau implicitly urges his readers to do just that. Though many people will doubtless balk at his unblinking presentation of the doctrine of reincarnation, Kapleau is such a persuasive teacher, and Zen is so full of practical wisdom, that almost anyone could profit from his lessons.