Seen by many as a contemporary classic, Janwillem van de Wetering's small and admirable memoir records the experiences of a young Dutch student-later a widely celebrated mystery writer-who spent a year and a half as a novice monk in a Japanese Zen Buddhist monastery. As Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, author of Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism , has written, The Empty Mirror "should be very encouraging for other Western seekers." It is the first book in a trilogy that continues with A Glimpse of Nothingness and Afterzen.