Bones of the Master - A Journey to Secret Mongolia

Zusatztext "A jewel … firmly in the company of Matthiessen, Chatwin, and O'Hanlon." — Parabola "A fascinating, beautifully written account of a great (and delightful) Ch'an master's return pilgrimage to remote Inner Mongolia after forty years of exile." — Peter Matthiessen, author of The Snow Leopard "Crane chronicles their perilous and miraculous adventures, the beauty of Mongolia's wilderness of wind and sand, and Tsung Tsai's transcendent determination with uncommon clarity, wit, vitality, and love." — Booklist (starred review) "A search for lost time, which the author recounts with haunting brilliance." — Richmond Times-Dispatch "As if a Ch'an master stepped out of the ancient tales and took you on a journey both moving and inspiring." — Jack Kornfield, author of After the Ecstasy, the Laundry Named "Best Spiritual Book of the Year" by Beliefnet.com Informationen zum Autor George Crane is a poet as well as a translator of poems from the Chinese ( A Thousand Pieces of Snow , co-authored with Tsung Tsai). He lives in upstate New York. Bones of the Master is his first nonfiction work. Klappentext In 1959 a young monk named Tsung Tsai (Ancestor Wisdom) escapes the Red Army troops that destroy his monastery, and flees alone three thousand miles across a China swept by chaos and famine. Knowing his fellow monks are dead, himself starving and hunted, he is sustained by his mission: to carry on the teachings of his Buddhist meditation master, who was too old to leave with his disciple. Nearly forty years later Tsung Tsai — now an old master himself — persuades his American neighbor, maverick poet George Crane, to travel with him back to his birthplace at the edge of the Gobi Desert. They are unlikely companions. Crane seeks freedom, adventure, sensation. Tsung Tsai is determined to find his master's grave and plant the seeds of a spiritual renewal in China. As their search culminates in a torturous climb to a remote mountain cave, it becomes clear that this seemingly quixotic quest may cost both men's lives. Leseprobe The Last Days of Puu Jih October 1959: Crow Pull Mountain, Inner Mongolia The ninth day of the tenth month. The Yellow Season. Tsung Tsai woke at three, two hours before first light. In the dry grass beyond the monastery's stone and mud-brick walls, the last slow-dying cicadas scraped their wings. The monk lit a candle stub and warmed his hands by its flame. The wick spat, guttered, then flared. The light flickered over his face and over the stark stone of the six- by nine-foot cell where he had lived for eighteen years. In it were his few possessions: a sleeping pad and quilted blanket roll, his rough brown robes, writing table, inkstone and brushes, a book of poems. He went to the window that looked north and west to the mountains, toward Morhgujing and the Silk Road -- the ancient caravan route through the black Gobi and the Taklimakan. He could just make out the winter plum that stood beneath his window, its branches bare and its bark worn gray with blowing sand. In a few hours, the monks would pace there in walking meditation. Tsung Tsai broke the skim of ice floating on the washbasin and splashed his face. He dried his hands and got his prayer beads from inside his robes that hung on the wall. Then he lit an eight-inch length of incense and sat. The ash still smoldered when, after meditation, he put on his robes and went downstairs to the kitchen. He finished his tea as he heard his brothers wake to the hollow clap of the night-ending gong. He listened to them wash and cough. The monks' routine during these last days would proceed as usual. But today he would not join them. He heard the swish of their robes as they shuffled down the corridor to the temple. Then he left. The gate in the monastery's south wall was st...

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: George Crane
• Editore: Bantam Books USA
• Lingue: Inglese
• Formato: Tascabile
• Pubblicazione: 29.05.2001
• EAN: 9780553379082
• ISBN: 978-0-553-37908-2
• Pagine: 320
• Dimensioni: 155 mm x 235 mm x 18 mm
• Categoria: Scienze umane, arte, musica > Religione / teologia > Altre religioni