Sun, 17 Sep 2006
Mind to Mind
I've been rereading Hasegawa's novel, Mind to Mind. I've mentioned before that the book is atrociously written, but there are some nuggets of gold if you're willing to sift through the dirt. It's an autobiographical novel that describes how the author grew up as the son of a Buddhist priest and then studied at the famous Zen monastery Shogenji. (The book calls in Soshinji.) There are several interesting features to the novel. First, every so often the author will throw in his translation of a Zen poem or koan. At one point he translates a Confucian critique of Zen. I find the translations quirky, but interesting. The author's account of what goes on behind the scenes of a Zen monastery is also interesting. He is clearly unhappy with much of the politics and the usual sort of bad behavior (chasing after money and skirts.) He also did not get along well with the abbot of the monastery. Partly this seems a conflict of personalities. The author was more literary and artistic, while the abbot was more extroverted and a bit of an empire builder. Despite his problems at the monastery, he made rapid progress with his koan practice, completing all two hundred by his early twenties. Which is pretty damn amazing, from where I sit. Anyway, I put the book aside after I bought it, because it's nearly unreadable, but now I'm persevering because i'm finding something useful in it.
This will be my last post for a week, because I'm leaving for the phowa retreat tomorrow. You can keep yourself busy while I'm away by reading these other fine weblogs. Byte Sized Buddha is a surprisingly good blog by Sean, who appears to be a Kagyu Buddhist. Lately it's mostly his poems. The oddly titled Dreaming Of Danzan Ravjaa is by a Western monk who's now living in Mongolia and who writes of his experiences. Maybe no more holy than Yonkers, New York, but certainly more exotic. And Big Red Buddha is a Buddhist huor weblog, in the vein of The Onion. But it's just a week old and new weblogs have a way of disappearing.
