Every Day Zen is a practical guide of how to live Zen. How do we connect with our feelings, how do we handle relationships, suffering, our ideals and boundaries? Beck talks about these things in a very simple and direct way. Time and time again she brings us back to the basics of Zen practice: living in the moment, not exclusively identifying with out body and mind, accepting things the way they are.

Every Day Zen is a comforting book because it handles our everyday problems: our resistance to change, a fight with your husband and kids, our fear for losing what we got. Beck talks with great insight and compassion about these things.

At the time this book was published, Joko Beck taught at the Zen Center in San Diego. In the course of time she developed as a very self-willed Zen teacher, urging her students to question traditions and rituals. She founded her own organisation: the Ordinary Mind Zen School.