Barbara O'Brien

Barbara Hoetsu O'Brien grew up in the Ozark Mountain section of the Bible Belt, also called the Land of Perpetual Holy Spirit Gospel Tabernacle Revivals. This fueled a lifelong fascination with religions, reflected in her first book, Rethinking Religion.

Her adventures in Zen began in 1988, when she first made a formal commitment to study with a Zen teacher. In the years since she studied with other teachers in other Zen lineages. She has struggled with fitting Zen practice into a life of child-rearing and job-holding; after the children were grown she chucked it all and lived in a Zen temple for a time.

Along the way Barbara noticed that even senior Zen students have only vague ideas about how the school of Buddhism called Zen originated and developed. Further, these days the word Zen is tacked on to a variety of commercial products, from computer processors to soap, which suggests most people in the West still have no idea what Zen is, other than some exotic Asian thing. So, she committed herself to explaining Zen, and explaining Buddhism as well.

Barbara has written about Buddhism for Tricycle, Lion's Roar and the Guardian Comment Is Free websites. She gained a considerable following while serving as the resident expert on Buddhism for About.com from 2008 to 2016. The Circle of the Way is the fruit of years of research and direct experience that tells the story of Zen.