RECORDINGS

ZEN POP: A great new album by a Zen priest--that is to say, um, Leonard Cohen. By Michael Friedman.

BOOKS:

"BUDDHA": David Cortesi finds some fundamental things wrong with Karen Armstrong's Penguin Lives "Buddha" book.

"THE ELEGANT UNIVERSE": Is Buddhism played on the strings of atoms and written in the stars? Tom Armstrong reviews Brian's Greene's "The Elegant Universe."

"GARY SNYDER READER:
The prose, poetry and Buddhist pathways of an inspiring writer. A review of "The Gary Snyder Reader" by Michael Friedman

"CIRCLING THE SACRED MOUNTAIN:
Heading for the holy hills with Robert Thurman and Tad Wise. A review of "Circling the Sacred Mountain," by Douglas J. Durham

"FOUR FOUNDATIONS":
Douglas Durham tells why U Silananda's "The Four Foundations of Mindfulness" is an essential sutra for serious wayfarers on the path.

KEROUAC ESSAY:
Tracking Jack Kerouac's Mayahana Buddhist tracks across Mexico, Helen Lane Dilg scours "Mexico City Blues" for Buddhist clues.

PLOWING THROUGH TIBET:
A Fact-Finding Journalist and Buddhist Monk Survey the Damage in two books on Tibet by Barbara Erickson and Palden Gyatso.

BOOKS:
"Finding Freedom": A San Quentin Inmate's moving and darkly instructive Death Row Dharma, reviewed by Douglas Imbrogno

MOVIES:

"KUNDUN":
Martin Scorcese's Stunning Elegy for a Lost Land.