Reddit mentions of The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra

As an intro to Zen, I highly recommend Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh; it’s a very easy-to-read introduction to the ideas of Zen Buddhism. Another nice intro by Thich Nhat Hanh is his book The Heart of Understanding, a commentary on the Prajñaparamita Heart Sutra. The second book repeats some of the same material (I think that Being Peace is a bit more comprehensive), but both are very approachable and easy to read.

Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Suzuki-Roshi is also an excellent book, but it’s very dense and difficult to get through. The Thich Nhat Hanh books I recommended are much easier because they’re compilations of his talks; I think of Zen Mind more like a textbook.

The group is totally nondenominational, although the other facilitator and I are members of the Zen Center. The readings are taken from every source imaginable, from the Shobogenzo to accesstoinsight.com to (occasionally) totally non-Buddhist sources. We spent a number of weeks reading and discussing Ticht Nhat Hanh's beautiful Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra.

Most of the folks seem to value the conversation more than the actual readings, so the readings tend to be brief and the discussions longer. We are a fun and extremely diverse group, come join us some time!