In a brief and savory 200 pages, Buddhist master Soyen Shaku (1856-1919), who would become chief abbot of both Engakuji and Kenchoji monasteries, presents seventeen peerless examples of what a sermon can be, tackling immortality, faith, ethics, the worldly and the transcendent, sacrifice, and ignorance and enlightenment among other subjects. These concise, fulfilling essays were given in 1905-1906 during the Zen monk's visit to America. The addresses that comprise this compendium mark the initial phase of the introduction of Buddhism on the popular level to the United States, delivered as Shaku crossed the continent - literally and symbolically - from west to east, and translated during that sojourn by D.T. Suzuki, who edited the sermons for publication and contributes a preface for the present edition. Every chapter, every page is illumined by the clearest thinking and the calmest, and therefore most convincing, conviction. In an age when religious understanding is degraded and undermined by absurd public spectacle, this collection of sermons serves as a trenchant witness to the invigorating silence of belief, while indeed providing a heady exposition of Buddhist thought and principles. This edition fortunately includes two addresses by Shaku on the Buddhist view of war stressing, as do the semons, the Buddhist perspective on personal responsibility. Exceptionally enlightening is an included reprint of a letter written by Shaku in 1896 to Dr. John Barrows, entitled here 'Reply To A Christian Critic'. One can't help believing that the pseudo-religionists whose violent heads and hearts have once again risen to fever pitch in America recently over a human being's rights to live and to die would be served far better by reading this Zen monk's quiet and reasoned rebuke than by the corporate media whores who feed them false importance to the detriment of us all. Highest recommendation.