I have been mesmerized by Michael Downing's book unlike all the other old Zennies I talk to about it. The main impression I have from what I have read so far is that Mr. Downing just and only examined the outside of the bowl, never got down into the bowl where anything of worth was happening. So the book is all very superficial and gossipy. And he had no sense of who Suzuki Roshi was or how extraordinary it was that Suzuki Roshi was doing what he was doing anywhere, much less at the epicenter of USA hippiedom at that point in the earth's turning.

Your sister in peace,