What happens when 21 university students encounter the teachings and practices of Zen for the first time? Most writings on Zen have come from Zen masters, scholars, and experienced practitioners. Here, a cross-section of American students with no prior experience of Zen read contemporary Zen texts, engage in meditation practice, and participate in in-class inquiry, documenting their emerging understandings, challenges, doubts, and questions over the course of a fifteen-week semester in a college course titled Non-argumentative rhetoric in Zen. Despite the common framework of texts, meditation practice, and class discussion, each chapter is a unique and fresh account of this work.