Receive a copy of Fire Monks: Zen Mind Meets Wildfire signed by both the author, Colleen Morton Busch, as well as several of the monks who were involved in meeting the fire, including the Abbot of San Francisco Zen Center.

In June 2008 more than two thousand wildfires, all started by a single lightning storm, blazed across the state of California. Tassajara, the oldest Zen Buddhist monastery in the United States, was at particular risk. Set deep in the Ventana wilderness east of Big Sur, the center is connected to the outside world by a single unpaved road. If fire were to enter the canyon, there would be no way out.

Colleen Morton Busch received her M.F.A. in poetry but writes and publishes fiction and nonfiction as well. A yoga student and Zen practitioner, Busch has worked as a college instructor—in New Orleans and Beijing—and as a magazine editor.

San Francisco Zen Center was established in 1962 by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. The Center supports three residences: Zen Center in San Francisco; Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in the  Ventana Wilderness inland from Big Sur; and Green Gulch  Farm in Marin County.