Author: Zen Master Dae Gak
His unique approach to a handful of traditional koans is to place them in a real-life, specifically American context. Lectures, essays, poems, calligraphies by this well-known Buddhist teacher. Dae Gak distills from his years of practise and study, philosophical investigations and autobiographical anecdote to guide us in living upright with poise and grace
An Original Voice In American Zen June 3, 2012
This is not your usual Zen book. It takes a fresh contemporary
approach, full of feeling and humility. It is organized as a collection
of observations and stories, at times autobiographical, all interspersed
with poems and calligraphy (by the author). This is the Dharma teaching
of the real world — of an encounter with a stubbornly independent blind
man (“On Being Blind”), of a poignant interview with a woman born with
no hand (“Offering Vulnerability”), of being suddenly confronted by a
copperhead snake. The book is grounded in the natural world that
flourishes at Dae Gak’s retreat center, Furnace Mountain, near the heart
of the Daniel Boone National Forest of Kentucky. The trees and
creatures he encounters there are teaching the Dharma; we only need to
listen.
His unique approach to a handful of traditional koans is to place
them in a real-life, specifically American context, giving the reader a
modern window into these ancient inscrutable tales. In addition he
extends his inquiry (“Taking up anything as koan is just to look with
wonder and without conclusion,” p. 135) to the Four Vows (“Vows as
Koans”),the three Refuges (in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha) and the first five
Precepts.
This book is a delight to read, at once modern and traditional, and makes Zen accessible for contemporary western readers
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