"To understand God is to listen. Listen to Jesus and Muhammad and Buddha, but don't get caught up in the names. Listen beyond them; listen to God's breath." --A Zen saying
God's Breath is an essential volume for all spiritual seekers at the dawn of a new millennium. The sacred texts collected here represent seven of the world's major wisdom traditions: Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Sufism, and Taoism. For hundreds of generations they have instructed, inspired, and consoled men and women around the world. Now, their presentation here--side by side--offers us a unique opportunity to appreciate their enduring truths anew. Fourteen leading spiritual teachers and writers introduce the selections, further enriching our appreciation for and understanding of these sacred works.
God's Breath includes the following sacred texts:
The Book of Genesis, the first book of the principal text of Judaism, the Torah, with a prologue by Herman Wouk and an introduction by Karen Armstrong;
The Tao Te Ching, the central text of Taoism, with a prologue by Joseph Campbell and an introduction by Stephen Mitchell;
The Book of Rumi, containing the poetry of the thirteenth-century Sufi poet and philosopher Jelaluddin Rumi, with a prologue by Thomas Merton and an introduction by Jonathan Star;
The Gospel of John, in the incomparable, beloved King James Version, with a prologue by Marcus Borg and an introduction by Reynolds Price;
The Bhagavad-Gita, a Sanskrit poem incorporated into the classic Hindu text the Mahabharata, with a prologue by Henry David Thoreau and an introduction by Barbara Stoler Miller;
The Qur'an, the sacred book of Islam, with a prologue by Sirdar Ikbal ali Shah and an introduction by Huston Smith;
The Tibetan Book of the Dead, the classic Tibetan Buddhist text on life, death, and the after-life, with a prologue by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and an introduction by Carl Jung. Thomas Moore, best-selling author of Care of the Soul, provides an overall introduction to the book. Editors John Miller and Aaron Kenedi run Big Fish in San Francisco. Big Fish has created more than 50 books, including Legends: Women Who Have Changed the World, Paul Gaugin's Noa Noa, Muhammad Ali Ringside, Lovers, and San Francisco Stories.
