Faces of Compassion introduces us to enlightened beings, the bodhisattvas of Buddhist lore. They're not otherworldly gods with superhuman qualities but shining examples of our own highest potential. Archetypes of wisdom and compassion, the bodhisattvas of Buddhism are powerful and compelling images of awakening. Scholar and Zen teacher Taigen Dan Leighton engagingly explores the imagery and lore of the seven most important of these archetypal figures, bringing them alive as psychological and spiritual wellsprings.
Emphasizing the universality of spiritual ideas, Leighton finds aspects of bodhisattvas expressed in a variety of familiar modern personages--from Muhammad Ali to Mahatma Gandhi, from Bob Dylan to Henry Thoreau, and from Gertrude Stein to Mother Teresa. This edition contains a revised and expanded introduction that frames the book as a exciting and broad-scoped view of Mahayana Buddhism. It's updated throughout to make it of more use to scholars and a perfect companion to survey courses of world religions or a 200-level course on Buddhism.

Faces of Compassion, Taigen Dan Leighton, Wisdom Publications, Paperback, 348 pages, $18.95

Taigen Dan Leighton is a SotoZen priest and Dharma successor in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi and the San Francisco Zen Center. Leighton began formal Soto practice in 1975 at the New York Zen Center with Kando Nakajima Roshi and graduated in East Asian Studies from Columbia College. He is author of Faces of Compassion, and is co-translator and editor of several Zen texts, including Cultivating the Empty Field, as well as The Wholehearted Way and Dogen's Pure Standards for the Zen Community, both translated together with Shohaku Okumura. Leighton is also a co-translator of collections of Dogen's writings: Moon in a Dewdrop, Enlightenment Unfolds and Beyond Thinking. He currently teaches at the Institute of Buddhist Studies of the Berkeley Graduate Theological Union and leads the Mountain Source Sangha meditation groups in the San Francisco area.