Hugh Pine, a porcupine, decides to live alone on an island in order to get away from all the problems the forest animals bring to him; but after a time he decides being alone isn't so wonderful after all.

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...