Clark Strand is a former Zen Buddhist monk and the author of Seeds From A Birch Tree: Writing Haiku and the Spiritual Journey and The Wooden Bowl: Simple Meditation for Everyday Life. In 1996 he left his position as senior editor of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review to write and teach full time. He now lives in Woodstock, NY, where he leads the Koans of the Bible Study Group. Mr. Strand wrote the foreword to Honen The Buddhist Saint: Essential Writings And Official Biography .