Learn to cultivate a clear mind, improve your intuition, feel naturally at ease, and generate the compassionate wisdom to face whatever arises.

Barbara Rhodes offers the Korean Zen teaching of don't-know mind as an antidote to the overthinking, overly-stimulating modern world that is the cause of so much suffering. Rhodes shows us that there are ways we can work with, or "compost," whatever we've got in front of us, digest it into energy that can get us through the rough times, and cultivate a satisfying life. And she offers fascinating insights from her professional life as a nurse, commitment to engaged Buddhism, life experience as a member of the LGBTQ community, use of psychedelics on her spiritual path, and more.

Composting Our Karma: Turning Confusion into Lessons for Awakening Our Innate Wisdom, Barbara Rhodes, Shambhala Publications, Paperback, 183 pages, $19.95

Zen Master Soeng Hyang (Barbara Rhodes) is the School Zen Master of the Kwan Um School of Zen and a retired hospice nurse. One of Zen Master Seung Sahn's first American students, she received dharma transmission from him in 1992. Rhodes helped found Providence Zen Center and lived there for seventeen years, serving in a number of administrative capacities. She has a daughter and lives with her partner, Mary, in California.